Anna Karenina - Part 3

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.