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whatever, as Sergey Ivanovitch explained, and Levin, busy seeing after
his own affairs, did not attend the meetings. On the fourth day the
auditing of the marshal’s accounts took place at the high table of the
marshal of the province. And then there occurred the first skirmish
between the new party and the old. The committee who had been
deputed to verify the accounts reported to the meeting that all was in
order. The marshal of the province got up, thanked the nobility for
their confidence, and shed tears. The nobles gave him a loud welcome,
and shook hands with him. But at that instant a nobleman of Sergey
Ivanovitch’s party said that he had heard that the committee had not
verified the accounts, considering such a verification an insult to the
marshal of the province. One of the members of the committee incau-
tiously admitted this. Then a small gentleman, very young-looking but
very malignant, began to say that it would probably be agreeable to the
marshal of the province to give an account of his expenditures of the
public moneys, and that the misplaced delicacy of the members of the
committee was depriving him of this moral satisfaction. Then the
members of the committee tried to withdraw their admission, and Sergey
Ivanovitch began to prove that they must logically admit either that
they had verified the accounts or that they had not, and he developed
this dilemma in detail. Sergey Ivanovitch was answered by the spokes-
man of the opposite party. Then Sviazhsky spoke, and then the malig-
nant gentleman again. The discussion lasted a long time and ended in
nothing. Levin was surprised that they should dispute upon this sub-
ject so long, especially as, when he asked Sergey Ivanovitch whether
he supposed that money had been misappropriated, Sergey Ivanovitch
answered:
“Oh, no! He’s an honest man. But those old-fashioned methods of
paternal family arrangements in the management of provincial affairs
must be broken down.”
On the fifth day came the elections of the district marshals. It was
rather a stormy day in several districts. In the Seleznevsky district
Sviazhsky was elected unanimously without a ballot, and he gave a
dinner that evening.