Page 1413 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

and thank you,’ and suddenly he stopped short from the
tears that choked him, and went out of the room.
Whether these tears came from a sense of the injustice
being done him, from his love for the nobility, or from

the strain of the position he was placed in, feeling himself
surrounded by enemies, his emotion infected the assembly,
the majority were touched, and Levin felt a tenderness for
Snetkov.
In the doorway the marshal of the province jostled
against Levin.
‘Beg pardon, excuse me, please,’ he said as to a
stranger, but recognizing Levin, he smiled timidly. It
seemed to Levin that he would have liked to say
something, but could not speak for emotion. His face and
his whole figure in his uniform with the crosses, and white
trousers striped with braid, as he moved hurriedly along,
reminded Levin of some hunted beast who sees that he is
in evil case. This expression in the marshal’s face was
particularly touching to Levin, because, only the day
before, he had been at his house about his trustee business
and had seen him in all his grandeur, a kind-hearted,
fatherly man. The big house with the old family furniture;
the rather dirty, far from stylish, but respectful footmen,
unmistakably old house serfs who had stuck to their

1412 of 1759