Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [217]
‘If so ...’ Alexei Alexandrovich began, suddenly turning pale, but at that moment the lawyer got up and went to the door to speak with the assistant, who had interrupted again.
‘Tell her we don’t give discounts!’ he said and went back to Alexei Alexandrovich.
While returning to his place he inconspicuously caught another moth. ‘Fine upholstery I’ll have by summer!’ he thought, frowning.
‘And so, you were kindly saying ...’ he said.
‘I shall inform you of my decision in writing,’ said Alexei Alexandrovich, getting up and taking hold of the desk. After standing silently for a while, he said: ‘I may thus conclude from your words that the carrying through of a divorce is possible. I should also like you to inform me of your terms.’
‘Everything is possible, if you allow me complete freedom of action,’ the lawyer said without answering the question. ‘When may I expect to hear from you?’ he asked, moving towards the door, his eyes and his patent-leather boots shining.
‘In a week. And kindly give me an answer as to whether you will agree to undertake in this case and on what terms.’
‘Very well, sir.’
The lawyer bowed deferentially, let his client out of the door and, left alone, gave himself up to his joyful feeling. He felt so merry that, contrary to his rules, he gave the bargaining lady a lower price and stopped catching moths, having decided finally that by next winter he would have to re-upholster the furniture in velvet, as at Sigonin’s.
VI
Alexei Alexandrovich had won a brilliant victory at the meeting of the commission on August 17th, but the consequences of that victory crippled him. The new commission for the investigation into all aspects of the life of the racial minorities was appointed and sent to the scene with extraordinary swiftness and energy, inspired by Alexei Alexandrovich. Three months later a report was presented. The life of the minorities was investigated in its political, administrative, economic, ethnographic, material and religious aspects. All questions were furnished with excellent answers, and answers not open to doubt, since they were not the product of human thought, which is always subject to error, but were the products of institutional activity. The answers were all the result of official data, the reports of governors and bishops, based on the reports of regional superiors and vicars, based for their part on the reports of local officials and parish priests; and therefore all these answers were indubitable. All the questions, for instance, about why there were crop failures, why the populations clung to their beliefs, and so on - questions that would not and could not be resolved for centuries without the convenience of the institutional machine - now received a clear and indubitable resolution. The results were in favour of Alexei Alexandrovich’s opinion. But when the reports of the commission were received, Stremov, feeling himself cut to the quick at the last meeting, employed a tactic that Alexei Alexandrovich did not expect. Drawing several other members with him, he suddenly went over to Alexei Alexandrovich’s side, and not only hotly defended the carrying out of the measures suggested by Karenin, but offered additional measures, extreme ones, in the same spirit. These measures, intensified far beyond Alexei Alexandrovich’s fundamental idea, were accepted, and then Stremov’s tactic was revealed. These measures, carried to an extreme, suddenly proved to be so stupid that statesmen, and public opinion, and intelligent ladies and the newspapers all fell upon them at one and the same time, voicing their indignation both at the measures themselves and at their acknowledged father, Alexei Alexandrovich. Stremov then withdrew, pretending he had only been blindly following Karenin’s plan and now was himself surprised and indignant at what had been done. This crippled Alexei Alexandrovich. But in spite of declining health, in spite of family woes, he did not give in. A split occurred in the commission. Some members, with Stremov at their head, justified