.
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 incautiously 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 spokesman of the opposite party. Then Sviazhsky spoke,
and then the malignant gentleman again. The discussion lasted a
long time and ended in nothing. Levin was surprised that they
should dispute upon this subject 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.

Chapter 27

The sixth day was fixed for the election of the marshal of the
province.

The rooms, large and small, were full of noblemen in all sorts of
uniforms. Many had come only for that day. Men who had not seen
each other for years, some from the Crimea, some from Petersburg,
some from abroad, met in the rooms of the Hall of Nobility.
There was much discuss