diversion. Some ate luncheon, standing or sitting at the buffet; others walked up and down the long room smoking cigarettes, and talked with friends whom they had not seen for long.
Levin did not feel hungry, he did not smoke, and he did not care to join his friends, that is, Sergyei Ivanovitch, Stepan Arkadyevitch, Sviazhsky, and the others, for the reason that Vronsky in his equerry's uniform stood in lively conversation with them. The evening before he had seen Vronsky at the election, and had carefully avoided him, not wishing to come into contact with him. He went to a window and sat down, watching the groups and listening to what was said around him. He felt depressed, especially because all the others, as he could see, were animated, active, and occupied, and he alone was inert and indifferent; the only other exception was an old man in a naval uniform, who had no teeth and who spoke in a mumbling voice.
"What a rogue. I told him it was not so! He can't make it up in three years," a round-shouldered, short proprietor was saying energetically; this man, whose long unpomaded hair was spread out over the embroidered collar of his uniform coat, walked along, noisily putting down the heels of his new boots which evidently had been made for the elections; but as he caught sight of Levin he cast a hostile glance at him, and turned about abruptly.
"Yes, it is a nasty thing to say so," repeated the little proprietor, in a piping voice.
Immediately behind these two came a whole throng of proprietors, crowding around a tall general, and quickly approaching where Levin was. They were evidently trying to find some place where they would not be overheard. "How does he dare to say that I ordered his trousers to be stolen. He drank them up, I reckon. I don't care a straw if he is a prince. Don't let him dare to say such a thing; it's swinish!"
"Hold on, excuse me. They insist on the letter of the law," they were saying in another group; "his wife must be inscribed among the nobility."
