Page 1403 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 27

The sixth day was fixed for the election of the marshal
of the province.
The rooms, large and small, were full of noblemen in
all sorts of uniforms. Many had come only for that day.
Men who had not seen each other for years, some from
the Crimea, some from Petersburg, some from abroad,
met in the rooms of the Hall of Nobility. There was much
discussion around the governor’s table under the portrait
of the Tsar.
The nobles, both in the larger and the smaller rooms,
grouped themselves in camps, and from their hostile and
suspicious glances, from the silence that fell upon them
when outsiders approached a group, and from the way
that some, whispering together, retreated to the farther
corridor, it was evident that each side had secrets from the
other. In appearance the noblemen were sharply divided
into two classes: the old and the new. The old were for
the most part either in old uniforms of the nobility,
buttoned up closely, with spurs and hats, or in their own
special naval, cavalry, infantry, or official uniforms. The
uniforms of the older men were embroidered in the old-

1402 of 1759