Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 14
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 writingtable.
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,
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