Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 23
Chapter 23
ON Monday there was the usual sitting of the Commission of the 2nd of June.
Alexey Alexandrovitch walked into the hall where the sitting was held, greeted
the members and the president, as usual, and sat down in his place, putting his hand
on the papers laid ready before him. Among these papers lay the necessary evidence
and a rough outline of the speech he intended to make. But he did not really need
these documents. He remembered every point, and did not think it necessary to go
over in his memory what he would say. He knew that when the time came, and
when he saw his enemy facing him, and studiously endeavoring to assume an expression
of indifference, his speech would flow of itself better than he could prepare
it now. He felt that the import of his speech was of such magnitude that every word
of it would have weight. Meantime, as he listened to the usual report, he had the
most innocent and inoffensive air. No one, looking at his white hands, with their
swollen veins and long fingers, so softly stroking the edges of the white paper that
lay before him, and at the air of weariness with which his head drooped on one side,
would have suspected that in a few minutes a torrent of words would flow from his
lips that would arouse a fearful storm, set the members shouting and attacking one
another, and force the president to call for order. When the report was over, Alexey
Alexandrovitch announced in his subdued, delicate voice that he had several points
to bring before the meeting in regard to the Commission for the Reorganization of the
Native Tribes. All attention was turned upon him. Alexey Alexandrovitch cleared
his throat, and not looking at his opponent, but selecting, as he always did while
he was delivering his speeches, the first person sitting opposite him, an inoffensive
little old man, who never had an opinion of any sort in the Commission, began to
expound his views. When he reached the point about the fundamental and radical
law, his opponent jumped up and began to protest. Stremov, who was also a member
of the Commission, and also stung to the quick, began defending himself, and
altogether a stormy sitting followed; but Alexey Alexandrovitch triumphed, and his
motion was carried, three new commissions were appointed, and the next day in a
certain Petersburg circle nothing else was talked of but this sitting. Alexey Alexandrovitch’s
success had been even greater than he had anticipated.
Next morning, Tuesday, Alexey Alexandrovitch, on waking up, recollected with
pleasure his triumph of the previous day, and he could not help smiling, though he
tried to appear indifferent, when the chief secretary of his department, anxious to
flatter him, informed him of the rumors that had reached him concerning what had
happened in the Commission.
Absorbed in business with the chief secretary, Alexey Alexandrovitch had completely
forgotten that it was Tuesday, the day fixed by him for the return of Anna
Arkadyevna, and he was surprised and received a shock of annoyance when a servant
came in to inform him of her arrival.
Anna had arrived in Petersburg early in the morning; the carriage had been sent
to meet her in accordance with her telegram, and so Alexey Alexandrovitch might
have known of her arrival. But when she arrived, he did not meet her. She was told
that he had not yet gone out, but was busy with his secretary. She sent word to her
husband that she had come, went to her own room, and occupied herself in sorting
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