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Chapter 26.
In September Levin moved to Moscow for Kitty’s confinement.
He had spent a whole month in Moscow with nothing to do, when
Sergey Ivanovitch, who had property in the Kashinsky province, and
took great interest in the question of the approaching elections, made
ready to set off to the elections. He invited his brother, who had a vote
in the Seleznevsky district, to come with him. Levin had, moreover, to
transact in Kashin some extremely important business relating to the
wardship of land and to the receiving of certain redemption money for
his sister, who was abroad.
Levin still hesitated, but Kitty, who saw that he was bored in Mos-
cow, and urged him to go, on her own authority ordered him the proper
nobleman’s uniform, costing seven pounds. And that seven pounds
paid for the uniform was the chief cause that finally decided Levin to
go. He went to Kashin....
Levin had been six days in Kashin, visiting the assembly each day,
and busily engaged about his sister’s business, which still dragged on.
The district marshals of nobility were all occupied with the elections,
and it was impossible to get the simplest thing done that depended
upon the court of wardship. The other matter, the payment of the sums
due, was met too by difficulties. After long negotiations over the legal
details, the money was at last ready to be paid; but the notary, a most
obliging person, could not hand over the order, because it must have
the signature of the president, and the president, though he had not
given over his duties to a deputy, was at the elections. All these worry-
ing negotiations, this endless going from place to place, and talking
with pleasant and excellent people, who quite saw the unpleasantness
of the petitioner’s position, but were powerless to assist him—all these
efforts that yielded no result, led to a feeling of misery in Levin akin to
the mortifying helplessness one experiences in dreams when one tries
to use physical force. He felt this frequently as he talked to his most
good-natured solicitor. This solicitor did, it seemed, everything pos-
sible, and strained every nerve to get him out of his difficulties. “I tell
you what you might try,” he said more than once; “go to so-and-so and
so-and-so,” and the solicitor drew up a regular plan for getting round
the fatal point that hindered everything. But he would add immedi-
ately, “It’ll mean some delay, anyway, but you might try it.” And Levin
did try, and did go. Everyone was kind and civil, but the point evaded
seemed to crop up again in the end, and again to bar the way. What
was particularly trying, was that Levin could not make out with whom
he was struggling, to whose interest it was that his business should not
be done. That no one seemed to know; the solicitor certainly did not
know. If Levin could have understood why, just as he saw why one can
only approach the booking office of a railway station in single file, it
would not have been so vexatious and tiresome to him. But with the
hindrances that confronted him in his business, no one could explain
why they existed.
But Levin had changed a good deal since his marriage; he was
patient, and if he could not see why it was all arranged like this, he told
himself that he could not judge without knowing all about it, and that
most likely it must be so, and he tried not to fret.