Anna Karenina

s he neared Petersburg, Alexey Alexandrovitch not only adhered
entirely to his decision, but was even composing in his head the letter
he would write to his wife. Going into the porter’s room, Alexey
Alexandrovitch glanced at the letters and papers brought from his
office, and directed that they should be brought to him in his study.

“The horses can be taken out and I will see no one,” he said in answer
to the porter, with a certain pleasure, indicative of his agreeable
frame of mind, emphasizing the words, “see no one.”

In his study Alexey Alexandrovitch walked up and down twice, and
stopped at an immense writing-table, on which six candles had already
been lighted by the valet who had preceded him. He cracked his knuckles
and sat down, sorting out his writing appurtenances. Putting his elbows
on the table, he bent his head on one side, thought a minute, and began
to write, without pausing for a second. He wrote without using any form
of address to her, and wrote in French, making use of the plural
“vous,” which has not the same note of coldness as the corresponding
Russian form.

“At our last conversation, I notified you of my intention to
communicate to you my decision in regard to the subject of that
conversation. Having carefully considered everything, I am writing now
with the object of fulfilling that promise. My decision is as follows.
Whatever your conduct may have been, I do not consider myself justified
in breaking the ties in which we are bound by a Higher Power. The
family cannot be broken up by a whim, a caprice, or even by the sin of
one of the partners in the marriage, and our life must go on as it has
done in the past. This is essential for me, for you, and for our son. I
am fully persuaded that you have repented and do repent of what has
called forth the present letter, and that you will cooperate with me in
eradicating the cause of our estrangement, and forgetting the past. In
the contrary event, you can conjecture what awaits you and your son.
All this I hope to discuss more in detail in a personal interview. As
the season is drawing to a close, I would beg you to return to
Petersburg as quickly as possible, not later than Tuesday. All
necessary preparations shall be made for your arrival here. I beg you
to note that I attach particular significance to compliance with this
request.

A. Karenin

“P.S.—I enclose the money which may be needed for your expenses.”

He read the letter through and felt pleased with it, and especially
that he had remembered to enclose money: there was not a harsh word,
not a reproach in it, nor was there undue indulgence. Most of all, it
was a golden bridge for return. Folding the letter and smoothing it
with a massive ivory knife, and putting it in an envelope with the
money, he rang the bell with the gratification it always afforded him
to use the well arranged appointments of his writing-table.

“Give this to the courier to be delivered to Anna Arkadyevna tomorrow
at the summer villa,” he said, getting up.

“Certainly, your excellency; tea to be served in the study?”

Alexey Alexandrovitch ordered tea to be brought to the study, and
playing with the massive paper-knife, he moved to his easy chair, near
which there had been placed ready for him a lamp and the French work on
Egyptian hieroglyphics that he had begun. Over the easy chair there
hung in a gold frame an oval portrait of Anna, a fine painting by a
celebrated artist. Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced at it. The
unfathomable eyes gazed ironically and insolently at him. Insufferably
insolent and challenging was the effect in Alexey Alexandrovitch’s eyes
of the black lace about the head, admirably touched in by the painter,
the black hair and handsome white hand with one finger lifted, covered
with rings. After looking at the portrait for a minute, Alexey
Alexandrovitch shuddered so that his lips quivered and he uttered the
sound “brrr,” and turned away. He made haste to sit down in his easy
chair and opened the book. He tried to read, but he could not revive
the very vivid interest he had felt before in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
He looked at the book and thought of something else. He thought not of
his wife, but of a complication that had arisen in his official life,
which at the time constituted the chief interest of it. He felt that he
had penetrated more deeply than ever before into this intricate affair,
and that he had originated a leading idea—he could say it without
self-flattery—calculated to clear up the whole business, to strengthen
him in his official career, to discomfit his enemies, and thereby to be
of the greatest benefit to the government. Directly the servant had set
the tea and left the room, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up and went to the
writing-table. Moving into the middle of the table a portfolio of
papers, with a scarcely perceptible smile of self-satisfaction, he took
a pencil from a rack and plunged into the perusal of a complex report
relating to the present complication. The complication was of this
nature: Alexey Alexandrovitch’s characteristic quality as a politician,
that special individual qualification that every rising functionary
possesses, the qualification that with his unflagging ambition, his
reserve, his honesty, and with his self-confidence had made his career,
was his contempt for red tape, his cutting down of correspondence, his
direct contact, wherever possible, with the living fact, and his
economy. It happened that the famous Commission of the 2nd of June had
set on foot an inquiry into the irrigation of lands in the Zaraisky
province, which fell under Alexey Alexandrovitch’s department, and was
a glaring example of fruitless expenditure and paper reforms. Alexey
Alexandrovitch was aware of the truth of this. The irrigation of these
lands in the Zaraisky province had been initiated by the predecessor of
Alexey Alexandrovitch’s predecessor. And vast sums of money had
actually been spent and were still being spent on this business, and
utterly unproductively, and the whole business could obviously lead to
nothing whatever. Alexey Alexandrovitch had perceived this at once on
entering office, and would have liked to lay hands on the Board of
Irrigation. But at first, when he did not yet feel secure in his
position, he knew it would affect too many interests, and would be
injudicious. Later on he had been engrossed in other questions, and had
simply forgotten the Board of Irrigation. It went of itself, like all
such boards, by the mere force of inertia. (Many people gained their
livelihood by the Board of Irrigation, especially one highly
conscientious and musical family: all the daughters played on stringed
instruments, and Alexey Alexandrovitch knew the family and had stood
godfather to one of the elder daughters.) The raising of this question
by a hostile department was in Alexey Alexandrovitch’s opinion a
dishonorable proceeding, seeing that in every department there were
things similar and worse, which no one inquired into, for well-known
reasons of official etiquette. However, now that the glove had been
thrown down to him, he had boldly picked it up and demanded the
appointment of a special commission to investigate and verify the
working of the Board of Irrigation of the lands in the Zaraisky
province. But in compensation he gave no quarter to the enemy either.
He demanded the appointment of another special commission to inquire
into the question of the Native Tribes Organization Committee. The
question of the Native Tribes had been brought up incidentally in the
Commission of the 2nd of June, and had been pressed forward actively by
Alexey Alexandrovitch as one admitting of no delay on account of the
deplorable condition of the native tribes. In the commission this
question had been a ground of contention between several departments.
The department hostile to Alexey Alexandrovitch proved that the
condition of the native tribes was exceedingly flourishing, that the
proposed reconstruction might be the ruin of their prosperity, and that
if there were anything wrong, it arose mainly from the failure on the
part of Alexey Alexandrovitch’s department to carry out the measures
prescribed by law. Now Alexey Alexandrovitch intended to demand: First,
that a new commission should be formed which should be empowered to
investigate the condition of the native tribes on the spot; secondly,
if it should appear that the condition of the native tribes actually
was such as it appeared to be from the official documents in the hands
of the committee, that another new scientific commission should be
appointed to investigate the deplorable condition of the native tribes
from the—(1) political, (2) administrative, (3) economic, (4)
ethnographical, (5) material, and (6) religious points of view;
thirdly, that evidence should be required from the rival department of
the measures that had been taken during the last ten years by that
department for averting the disastrous conditions in which the native
tribes were now placed; and fourthly and finally, that that department
explain why it had, as appeared from the evidence before the committee,
from No. 17,015 and 18,038, from December 5, 1863, and June 7, 1864,
acted in direct contravention of the intent of the law T... Act 18, and
the note to Act 36. A flash of eagerness suffused the face of Alexey
Alexandrovitch as he rapidly wrote out a synopsis of these ideas for
his own benefit. Having filled a sheet of paper, he got up, rang, and
sent a note to the chief secretary of his department to look up certain
necessary facts for him. Getting up and walking about the room, he
glanced again at the portrait, frowned, and smiled contemptuously.
After reading a little more of the book on Egyptian hieroglyphics, and
renewing his interest in it, Alexey Alexandrovitch went to bed at
eleven o’clock, and recollecting as he lay in bed the incident with his
wife, he saw it now in by no means such a gloomy light.