`A ballot! A ballot! Whoever is a nobleman clarisonic store understands! We shed our blood for our country!... The confidence of the Monarch.... No checking of the accounts of the marshal - he's not a cashier!... But that's not the point.... Votes, please! What vileness!...' shouted furious and violent voices on all sides. Looks and faces were even more violent and furious than their words. They expressed the most implacable hatred. Levin did not in the least understand what it was all about, and he marveled at the passion with which it was disputed whether or not the decision about Fliorov should be put to the vote. He forgot, as Sergei Ivanovich explained to him afterward, this syllogism: that it was necessary for the public good to get rid of the marshal of the province; that to get rid of the marshal it was necessary to have a majority of votes; that to get a majority of votes it was necessary to secure Fliorov's right to vote; that to secure the recognition of Fliorov's right to vote they must decide on the interpretation to be put on the act.
`And one vote may decide the whole question, and one must be serious and consecutive, if one wants to be of use in public life,' concluded Sergei Ivanovich. But Levin forgot all that, and it was painful to him to see all these excellent persons, for whom he had respect, in such an unpleasant and vicious state of excitement. To escape from this painful feeling he went away into the other room where there was nobody except the waiters at the refreshment bar. Seeing the waiters busy washing up the crockery and setting in order their plates and wineglasses, seeing their alert and vivacious faces, Levin felt an unexpected sense of relief, as though he had come out of a stuffy room into the fresh air. He began walking up and down, looking with pleasure at the waiters. He particularly liked the way one gray-whiskered waiter, who showed his scorn for the other younger ones, and was jeered at by them, was teaching them how to fold napkins properly. Levin was just about to enter into conversation with the old waiter, when the secretary of the court of wardship, a little old man whose speciality it was to know all the noblemen of the province by name and patronymic, drew him away.