“How glad I am I heard Koznishev!  It’s worth losing one’s dinner.  He’s exquisite!  So clear and distinct all of it!  There’s not one of you in the law courts that speaks like that.  The only one is Meidel, and he’s not so eloquent by a long way.”

Finding a free place, Levin leaned over the balustrade and began looking and listening.

All the noblemen were sitting railed off behind barriers according to their districts.  In the middle of the room stood a man in a uniform, who shouted in a loud, high voice: 

“As a candidate for the marshalship of the nobility of the province we call upon staff-captain Yevgeney Ivanovitch Apuhtin!” A dead silence followed, and then a weak old voice was heard:  “Declined!”

“We call upon the privy councilor Pyotr Petrovitch Bol,” the voice began again.

“Declined!” a high boyish voice replied.

Again it began, and again “Declined.”  And so it went on for about an hour.  Levin, with his elbows on the balustrade, looked and listened.  At first he wondered and wanted to know what it meant; then feeling sure that he could not make it out he began to be bored.  Then recalling all the excitement and vindictiveness he had seen on all the faces, he felt sad; he made up his mind to go, and went downstairs.  As he passed through the entry to the galleries he met a dejected high school boy walking up and down with tired-looking eyes.  On the stairs he met a couple—­a lady running quickly on her high heels and the jaunty deputy prosecutor.

“I told you you weren’t late,” the deputy prosecutor was saying at the moment when Levin moved aside to let the lady pass.

Levin was on the stairs to the way out, and was just feeling in his waistcoat pocket for the number of his overcoat, when the secretary overtook him.

“This way, please, Konstantin Dmitrievitch; they are voting.”

The candidate who was being voted on was Nevyedovsky, who had so stoutly denied all idea of standing.  Levin went up to the door of the room; it was locked.  The secretary knocked, the door opened, and Levin was met by two red-faced gentlemen, who darted out.

“I can’t stand any more of it,” said one red-faced gentleman.

After them the face of the marshal of the province was poked out.  His face was dreadful-looking from exhaustion and dismay.

“I told you not to let any one out!” he cried to the doorkeeper.

“I let someone in, your excellency!”

“Mercy on us!” and with a heavy sigh the marshal of the province walked with downcast head to the high table in the middle of the room, his legs staggering in his white trousers.

Nevyedovsky had scored a higher majority, as they had planned, and he was the new marshal of the province.  Many people were amused, many were pleased and happy, many were in ecstasies, many were disgusted and unhappy.  The former marshal of the province was in a state of despair, which he could not conceal.  When Nevyedovsky went out of the room, the crowd thronged round him and followed him enthusiastically, just as they had followed the governor who had opened the meetings, and just as they had followed Snetkov when he was elected.