Part Five: Chapter 24

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The levee was drawing to a close. People met as they were goingaway, and gossiped of the latest news, of the newly bestowedhonors and the changes in the positions of the higherfunctionaries.

　　"If only Countess Marya Borissovna were Minister of War, andPrincess Vatkovskaya were Commander-in-Chief," said agray-headed, little old man in a gold-embroidered uniform,addressing a tall, handsome maid of honor who had questioned himabout the new appointments.

　　"And me among the adjutants," said the maid of honor, smiling.

　　"You have an appointment already. You're over the ecclesiasticaldepartment. And your assistant's Karenin."

　　"Good-day, prince!" said the little old man to a man who came upto him.

　　"What were you saying of Karenin?" said the prince.

　　"He and Putyatov have received the Alexander Nevsky."

　　"I thought he had it already."

　　"No. Just look at him," said the little old man, pointing withhis embroidered hat to Karenin in a court uniform with the newred ribbon across his shoulders, standing in the doorway of thehall with an influential member of the Imperial Council."Pleased and happy as a brass farthing," he added, stopping toshake hands with a handsome gentleman of the bedchamber ofcolossal proportions.

　　"No; he's looking older," said the gentleman of the bedchamber.

　　"From overwork. He's always drawing up projects nowadays. Hewon't let a poor devil go nowadays till he's explained it all tohim under heads."

　　"Looking older, did you say? Il fait des passions. I believeCountess Lidia Ivanovna's jealous now of his wife."

　　"Oh, come now, please don't say any harm of Countess LidiaIvanovna."

　　"Why, is there any harm in her being in love with Karenin?"

　　"But is it true Madame Karenina's here?"

　　"Well, not here in the palace, but in Petersburg. I met heryesterday with Alexey Vronsky, bras dessous, bras dessous, in theMorsky."

　　"C'est un homme qui n'a pas..." the gentleman of the bedchamberwas beginning, but he stopped to make room, bowing, for a memberof the Imperial family to pass.

　　Thus people talked incessantly of Alexey Alexandrovitch, findingfault with him and laughing at him, while he, blocking up the wayof the member of the Imperial Council he had captured, wasexplaining to him point by point his new financial project, neverinterrupting his discourse for an instant for fear he shouldescape.

　　Almost at the same time that his wife left Alexey Alexandrovitchthere had come to him that bitterest moment in the life of anofficial--the moment when his upward career comes to a full stop.This full stop had arrived and everyone perceived it, but AlexeyAlexandrovitch himself was not yet aware that his career wasover. Whether it was due to his feud with Stremov, or hismisfortune with his wife, or simply that Alexey Alexandrovitchhad reached his destined limits, it had become evident toeveryone in the course of that year that his career was at anend. He still filled a position of consequence, he sat on manycommissions and committees, but he was a man whose day was over,and from whom nothing was expected. Whatever he said, whateverhe proposed, was heard as though it were something long familiar,and the very thing that was not needed. But AlexeyAlexandrovitch was not aware of this, and, on the contrary, beingcut off from direct participation in governmental activity, hesaw more clearly than ever the errors and defects in the actionof others, and thought it his duty to point out means for theircorrection. Shortly after his separation from his wife, he beganwriting his first note on the new judicial procedure, the firstof the endless series of notes he was destined to write in thefuture.

　　Alexey Alexandrovitch did not merely fail to observe his hopelessposition in the official world, he was not merely free fromanxiety on this head, he was positively more satisfied than everwith his own activity.

　　"He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to theLord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married carethfor the things that are of the world, how he may please hiswife," says the Apostle Paul, and Alexey Alexandrovitch, who wasnow guided in every action by Scripture, often recalled thistext. It seemed to him that ever since he had been left withouta wife, he had in these very projects of reform been serving theLord more zealously than before.

　　The unmistakable impatience of the member of the Council tryingto get away from him did not trouble Alexey Alexandrovitch; hegave up his exposition only when the member of the Council,seizing his chance when one of the Imperial family was passing,slipped away from him.

　　Left alone, Alexey Alexandrovitch looked down, collecting histhoughts, then looked casually about him and walked towards thedoor, where he hoped to meet Countess Lidia Ivanovna.

　　"And how strong they all are, how sound physically," thoughtAlexey Alexandrovitch, looking at the powerfully built gentlemanof the bedchamber with his well-combed, perfumed whiskers, and atthe red neck of the prince, pinched by his tight uniform. He hadto pass them on his way. "Truly is it said that all the world isevil," he thought, with another sidelong glance at the calves ofthe gentleman of the bedchamber.

　　Moving forward deliberately, Alexey Alexandrovitch bowed with hiscustomary air of weariness and dignity to the gentleman who hadbeen talking about him, and looking towards the door, his eyessought Countess Lidia Ivanovna.

　　"Ah! Alexey Alexandrovitch!" said the little old man, with amalicious light in his eyes, at the moment when Karenin was on alevel with them, and was nodding with a frigid gesture, "Ihaven't congratulated you yet," said the old man, pointing to hisnewly received ribbon.

　　"Thank you," answered Alexey Alexandrovitch. "What an exquisiteday to-day," he added, laying emphasis in his peculiar way on theword exquisite.

　　That they laughed at him he was well aware, but he did not expectanything but hostility from them; he was used to that by now.

　　Catching sight of the yellow shoulders of Lidia Ivanovna juttingout above her corset, and her fine pensive eyes bidding him toher, Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled, revealing untarnished whiteteeth, and went towards her.

　　Lidia Ivanovna's dress had cost her great pains, as indeed allher dresses had done of late. Her aim in dress was now quite thereverse of that she had pursued thirty years before. Then herdesire had been to adorn herself with something, and the moreadorned the better. Now, on the contrary, she was perforcedecked out in a way so inconsistent with her age and her figure,that her one anxiety was to contrive that the contrast betweenthese adornments and her own exterior should not be tooappalling. And as far as Alexey Alexandrovitch was concerned shesucceeded, and was in his eyes attractive. For him she was theone island not only of goodwill to him, but of love in the midstof the sea of hostility and jeering that surrounded him.

　　Passing through rows of ironical eyes, he was drawn as naturallyto her loving glance as a plant to the sun.

　　"I congratulate you," she said to him, her eyes on his ribbon.

　　Suppressing a smile of pleasure, he shrugged his shoulders,closing his eyes, as though to say that that could not be asource of joy to him. Countess Lidia Ivanovna was very wellaware that it was one of his chief sources of satisfaction,though he never admitted it.

　　"How is our angel?" said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, meaningSeryozha.

　　"I can't say I was quite pleased with him," said AlexeyAlexandrovitch, raising his eyebrows and opening his eyes. "AndSitnikov is not satisfied with him." (Sitnikov was the tutor towhom Seryozha's secular education had been intrusted.) "As Ihave mentioned to you, there's a sort of coldness in him towardsthe most important questions which ought to touch the heart ofevery man and every child...." Alexey Alexandrovitch beganexpounding his views on the sole question that interested himbesides the service--the education of his son.

　　When Alexey Alexandrovitch with Lidia Ivanovna's help had beenbrought back anew to life and activity, he felt it his duty toundertake the education of the son left on his hands. Havingnever before taken any interest in educational questions, AlexeyAlexandrovitch devoted some time to the theoretical study of thesubject. After reading several books on anthropology, education,and didactics, Alexey Alexandrovitch drew up a plan of education,and engaging the best tutor in Petersburg to superintend it, heset to work, and the subject continually absorbed him.

　　"Yes, but the heart. I see in him his father's heart, and withsuch a heart a child cannot go far wrong," said Lidia Ivanovnawith enthusiasm.

　　"Yes, perhaps.... As for me, I do my duty. It's all I cando."

　　"You're coming to me," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, after apause; "we have to speak of a subject painful for you. I wouldgive anything to have spared you certain memories, but others arenot of the same mind. I have received a letter from her. Sheis here in Petersburg."

　　Alexey Alexandrovitch shuddered at the allusion to his wife, butimmediately his face assumed the deathlike rigidity whichexpressed utter helplessness in the matter.

　　"I was expecting it," he said.

　　Countess Lidia Ivanovna looked at him ecstatically, and tears ofrapture at the greatness of his soul came into her eyes.