The narrow room, in which they were smoking and taking refreshments,
was full of noblemen. The excitement grew more intense,
and every face betrayed some uneasiness. The excitement was
specially keen for the leaders of each party, who knew every
detail, and had reckoned up every vote. They were the generals
organizing the approaching battle. The rest, like the rank and
file before an engagement, though they were getting ready for the
fight, sought for other distractions in the interval. Some were
lunching, standing at the bar, or sitting at the table; others
were walking up and down the long room, smoking cigarettes, and
talking with friends whom they had not seen for a long while.

Levin did not care to eat, and he was not smoking; he did not
want to join his own friends, that is Sergey Ivanovitch, Stepan
Arkadyevitch, Sviazhsky and the rest, because Vronsky in his
equerry's uniform was standing with them in eager conversation.
Levin had seen him already at the meeting on the previous day,
and he had studiously avoided him, not caring to greet him. He
went to the window and sat down, scanning the groups, and
listening to what was being said around him. He felt depressed,
especially because everyone else was, as he saw, eager, anxious,
and interested, and he alone, with an old, toothless little man
with mumbling lips wearing a naval uniform, sitting beside him,
had no interest in it and nothing to do.