XXXI.

The newly elected marshal and many of the successful party dined that day with Vronsky.

Vronsky had come to the elections partly because he was bored in the country and wanted to show Anna his right to independence, and also to repay Sviiazhsky by his support at the election for all the trouble he had taken for Vronsky at the Zemstvo election, but chiefly for the strict performance of all those duties of a nobleman and landowner which he had taken upon himself. But he had not in the least expected that the election would interest him so, so keenly excite him, and that he would be so good at this kind of thing. He was quite a new man in the circle of the nobility of the province, but his success was unmistakable, and he was not wrong in supposing that he had already obtained a certain influence. This influence was due to his wealth and aristocracy; the capital house in the town lent him by his old friend Shirkov, who had a post in the department of finances and was director of a flourishing bank in Kashin; the excellent cook Vronsky had brought from the country; and his friendship with the governor, who was a schoolfellow of Vronsky — a schoolfellow he had patronized and protected indeed. But what contributed more than all to his success was his direct, equable manner with everyone, which very quickly made the majority of the noblemen reverse the current opinion of his supposed haughtiness. He was himself conscious that, except for that mad gentleman married to Kitty Shcherbatskaia, who had a propos de bottes poured out a stream of irrelevant absurdities with such spiteful fury, every nobleman with whom he had made acquaintance had become his adherent. He saw clearly, and other people recognized it, too, that he had done a great deal to secure the success of Neviedovsky. And now at his own table, celebrating Neviedovsky’s election, he was experiencing an agreeable sense of triumph over the success of his candidate. The election itself had so fascinated him that, if he could succeed in getting married during the next three years, he began to think of running for office himself — much as, after winning a race ridden by a jockey, he had longed to ride a race himself.

Today he was celebrating the success of his jockey. Vronsky sat at the head of the table, on his right hand sat the young governor, a general of high rank. To all the rest he was the master of the province, who had solemnly opened the elections with his speech, and aroused a feeling of respect and even of awe in many people, as Vronsky saw; to Vronsky he was Katka Maslov — that had been his nickname in the Pages’ Corps — whom he felt to be shy and tried to put at ease. On the left hand sat Neviedovsky with his youthful, stubborn, and venomous countenance. With him Vronsky was simple and deferential.

Sviiazhsky took his failure very lightheartedly. It was indeed no failure in his eyes, as he said himself, turning, glass in hand, to Neviedovsky: they could not have found a better representative of the new movement, which the nobility ought to follow. And so every honest person, as he said, was on the side of today’s success and was celebrating over it.

Stepan Arkadyevich was glad, too, because he was having a good time, and because everyone was pleased. The episodes of the elections served as a good occasion for a capital dinner. Sviiazhsky comically imitated the tearful discourse of marshal, and observed, addressing Neviedovsky, that His Excellency would have to select another, more complicated method of auditing accounts than tears. Another nobleman jocosely described how footmen in stockings had been imported for the marshal’s ball, and how now they would have to be sent back unless the new marshal would give a ball with footmen in stockings.

Continually during dinner they said of Neviedovsky: “Our Marshal” and “Your Excellency.”

This was said with the same pleasure with which a young wife is called “Madame” and by her husband’s name. Neviedovsky affected to be not merely indifferent but scornful of this appellation, but it was obvious that he was highly delighted, and had to keep a curb on himself not to betray the triumph which was unsuitable to their new, liberal party.

In the course of dinner several telegrams were sent to people interested in the result of the election. And Stepan Arkadyevich, who was in high spirits, sent Darya Alexandrovna a telegram: “Neviedovsky elected by twenty votes. Congratulations. Tell people.” He dictated it aloud, saying: “We must let them share our rejoicing.” Darya Alexandrovna, getting the message, simply sighed over the rouble wasted on it, and understood that it was an afterdinner affair. She knew Stiva had a weakness after dining for faire jouer le telegraphe.

Everything, together with the excellent dinner and the wine, not from Russian merchants, but imported direct from abroad, was extremely dignified, simple, and enjoyable. The party — some twenty — had been selected by Sviiazhsky from among the more active new liberals, all of the same way of thinking, who were at the same time clever and well-bred. They drank, also half in jest, to the health of the new marshal of the province, of the governor, of the bank director, and of “our amiable host.”

Vronsky was satisfied. He had never expected to find so pleasant a tone in the provinces.

Toward the end of dinner it was still more lively. The governor asked Vronsky to come to a concert for the benefit of the brethren which his wife, who was anxious to make his acquaintance, had been getting up:

“There’ll be a ball, and you’ll see the belle of the province. Worth seeing, really.”

“Not in my line,” Vronsky answered. He liked that English phrase. But he smiled, and promised to come.

Before they rose from the table, when all of them were smoking, Vronsky’s valet went up to him with a letter on a tray.

“From Vozdvizhenskoe by special messenger,” he said with a significant expression.

“Astonishing! How like he is to the deputy prosecutor Sventitsky,” said one of the guests in French of the valet, while Vronsky, frowning, read the letter.

The letter was from Anna. Before he read the letter, he knew its contents. Expecting the elections to be over in five days, he had promised to be back on Friday. Today was Saturday, and he knew that the letter contained reproaches for not being back at the time fixed. The letter he had sent the previous evening had probably not reached her yet.

The letter was what he had expected, but the form of it was unexpected, and particularly disagreeable to him. “Annie is very ill, the doctor says it may be inflammation of the lungs. I am losing my head all alone. Princess Varvara is no help, but a hindrance. I expected you the day before yesterday, and yesterday, and now I am sending to find out where you are and what you are doing. I wanted to come myself, but thought better of it, knowing you would dislike it. Send some answer, that I may know what to do.”

The child ill, yet she had thought of coming herself. Their daughter ill — and this hostile tone.

The innocent festivities over the election, and this gloomy, burdensome love to which he had to return, struck Vronsky by their contrast. But he had to go, and by the first train that night he set off home.