Page 1401 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

confidence, and shed tears. The nobles gave him a loud
welcome, and shook hands with him. But at that instant a
nobleman of Sergey Ivanovitch’s party said that he had
heard that the committee had not verified the accounts,

considering such a verification an insult to the marshal of
the province. One of the members of the committee
incautiously admitted this. Then a small gentleman, very
young-looking but very malignant, began to say that it
would probably be agreeable to the marshal of the
province to give an account of his expenditures of the
public moneys, and that the misplaced delicacy of the
members of the committee was depriving him of this
moral satisfaction. Then the members of the committee
tried to withdraw their admission, and Sergey Ivanovitch
began to prove that they must logically admit either that
they had verified the accounts or that they had not, and he
developed this dilemma in detail. Sergey Ivanovitch was
answered by the spokesman of the opposite party. Then
Sviazhsky spoke, and then the malignant gentleman again.
The discussion lasted a long time and ended in nothing.
Levin was surprised that they should dispute upon this
subject so long, especially as, when he asked Sergey
Ivanovitch whether he supposed that money had been
misappropriated, Sergey Ivanovitch answered:

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