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

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Moscow, 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 worrying

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 possible,

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 immediately, "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.




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