Page 1404 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

fashioned way with epaulets on their shoulders; they were
unmistakably tight and short in the waist, as though their
wearers had grown out of them. The younger men wore
the uniform of the nobility with long waists and broad

shoulders, unbuttoned over white waistcoats, or uniforms
with black collars and with the embroidered badges of
justices of the peace. To the younger men belonged the
court uniforms that here and there brightened up the
crowd.
But the division into young and old did not correspond
with the division of parties. Some of the young men, as
Levin observed, belonged to the old party; and some of
the very oldest noblemen, on the contrary, were
whispering with Sviazhsky, and were evidently ardent
partisans of the new party.
Levin stood in the smaller room, where they were
smoking and taking light refreshments, close to his own
friends, and listening to what they were saying, he
conscientiously exerted all his intelligence trying to
understand what was said. Sergey Ivanovitch was the
center round which the others grouped themselves. He
was listening at that moment to Sviazhsky and Hliustov,
the marshal of another district, who belonged to their
party. Hliustov would not agree to go with his district to

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