Page 1433 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 31

The newly elected marshal and many of the successful
party dined that day with Vronsky.
Vronsky had come to the elections partly because he
was bored in the country and wanted to show Anna his
right to independence, and also to repay Sviazhsky by his
support at the election for all the trouble he had taken for
Vronsky at the district council election, but chiefly in
order strictly to perform all those duties of a nobleman and
landowner which he had taken upon himself. But he had
not in the least expected that the election would so
interest him, so keenly excite him, and that he would be
so good at this kind of thing. He was quite a new man in
the circle of the nobility of the province, but his success
was unmistakable, and he was not wrong in supposing that
he had already obtained a certain influence. This influence
was due to his wealth and reputation, the capital house in
the town lent him by his old friend Shirkov, who had a
post in the department of finances and was director of a
nourishing bank in Kashin; the excellent cook Vronsky
had brought from the country, and his friendship with the
governor, who was a schoolfellow of Vronsky’s—a

1432 of 1759