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.
Chapter 15
Though Anna had obstinately and with exasperation contradicted Vronsky when he told her their position was impossible, at the bottom of her heart she regarded her own position as false and dishonorable, and she longed with her whole soul to change it.
On the way home from the races she had told her husband the truth in a moment of excitement, and in spite of the agony she had suffered in doing so, she was glad of it.
After her husband had left her, she told herself that she was glad, that now everything was made clear, and at least there would be no more lying and deception.
It seemed to her beyond doubt that her position was now made clear forever.
It might be bad, this new position, but it would be clear; there would be no indefiniteness or falsehood about it.
The pain she had caused herself and her husband in uttering those words would be rewarded now by everything being made clear, she thought.
That evening she saw Vronsky, but she did not tell him of what had passed between her and her husband, though, to make the position definite, it was necessary to tell him.
When she woke up next morning the first thing that rose to her mind was what she had said to her husband, and those words seemed to her so awful that she could not conceive now how she could have brought herself to utter those strange, coarse words, and could not imagine what would come of it.
But the words were spoken, and Alexey Alexandrovitch had gone away without saying anything.
"I saw Vronsky and did not tell him.
At the very instant he was going away I would have turned him back and told him, but I changed my mind, because it was strange that I had not told him the first minute.
Why was it I wanted to tell him and did not tell him?"
And in answer to this question a burning blush of shame spread over her face.
She knew what had kept her from it, she knew that she had been ashamed.
Her position, which had seemed to her simplified the night before, suddenly struck her now as not only not simple, but as absolutely hopeless.
She felt terrified at the disgrace, of which she had not ever thought before.
Directly she thought of what her husband would do, the most terrible ideas came to her mind.
She had a vision of being turned out of the house, of her shame being proclaimed to all the world.
She asked herself where she should go when she was turned out of the house, and she could not find an answer.
When she thought of Vronsky, it seemed to her that he did not love her, that he was already beginning to be tired of her, that she could not offer herself to him, and she felt bitter against him for it.
It seemed to her that the words that she had spoken to her husband, and had continually repeated in her imagination, she had said to everyone, and everyone had heard them.
She could not bring herself to look those of her own household in the face.
She could not bring herself to call her maid, and still less go downstairs and see her son and his governess.
The maid, who had been listening at her door for a long while, came into her room of her own accord.
Anna glanced inquiringly into her face, and blushed with a scared look.
The maid begged her pardon for coming in, saying that she had fancied the bell rang.
She brought her clothes and a note.
The note was from Betsy.