would go flying off in this direction or that, and doing whatever he was told to do. All were good and kind, but it seemed as if the obstacles, even after he had passed them, kept growing up again and cutting off his path.
Especially annoying was it to him that he could never know with whom he was really contending, for whose profit it was that he could never bring his business to a conclusion. And no one seemed to know this either. Not even the solicitor knew this. If Levin could have understood, as he understood why it was impossible to get at the office of a railway otherwise than by standing in line, it would not have been humiliating and vexatious, but, as regarded the obstacles that stood in his way, not one could tell him why they existed.
But Levin had greatly changed since his marriage. He had learned patience, and if he could not comprehend why all this was arranged as it was, then he told himself, since he did not know all about it, he was not in a position to judge, that apparently it was unavoidable; and he strove not to lose his temper.
Now that he was present at the elections, he endeavored not to be severe in his criticisms, nor to enter into controversies, but as far as he could to understand the matters which excellent and honorable men whom he thoroughly respected found so serious and so absorbing. Since his marriage Levin had opened his eyes to so many new and serious sides of life which had hitherto seemed to him, in his superficial view of them, of no great importance, that now in the matter of the elections he looked for a serious significance and found one.
Sergyeï Ivanovitch explained to him the idea and significance of the change which was proposed to the electors. The governmental predvodityel, or marshal of nobility, had charge of very many matters of public importance, — as, for example, guardianships, such as the one which Levin himself was now trying to bring into a satisfactory shape, — and large sums of money and the direction of the gymnasia, or schools for women, and for the peasantry and the military and the training of the
