Page 1411 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Levin was just about to enter into conversation with the
old waiter, when the secretary of the court of wardship, a
little old man whose specialty it was to know all the
noblemen of the province by name and patronymic, drew

him away.
‘Please come, Konstantin Dmitrievitch,’ he said, ‘your
brother’s looking for you. They are voting on the legal
point.’
Levin walked into the room, received a white ball, and
followed his brother, Sergey Ivanovitch, to the table
where Sviazhsky was standing with a significant and
ironical face, holding his beard in his fist and sniffing at it.
Sergey Ivanovitch put his hand into the box, put the ball
somewhere, and making room for Levin, stopped. Levin
advanced, but utterly forgetting what he was to do, and
much embarrassed, he turned to Sergey Ivanovitch with
the question, ‘Where am I to put it?’ He asked this softly,
at a moment when there was talking going on near, so
that he had hoped his question would not be overheard.
But the persons speaking paused, and his improper
question was overheard. Sergey Ivanovitch frowned.
‘That is a matter for each man’s own decision,’ he said
severely.

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