Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FOUR CHAPTER 6
Chapter 6
ALEXEY Alexandrovitch had gained a brilliant victory at the sitting of the Commission
of the 17th of August, but in the sequel this victory cut the ground from
under his feet. The new commission for the inquiry into the condition of the native
tribes in all its branches had been formed and despatched to its destination with an
unusual speed and energy inspired by Alexey Alexandrovitch. Within three months
a report was presented. The condition of the native tribes was investigated in its political,
administrative, economic, ethnographic, material, and religious aspects. To
all these questions there were answers admirably stated, and answers admitting no
shade of doubt, since they were not a product of human thought, always liable to error,
but were all the product of official activity. The answers were all based on official
data furnished by governors and heads of churches, and founded on the reports of
district magistrates and ecclesiastical superintendents, founded in their turn on the
reports of parochial overseers and parish priests; and so all of these answers were
unhesitating and certain. All such questions as, for instance, of the cause of failure
of crops, of the adherence of certain tribes to their ancient beliefs, etc.– questions
which, but for the convenient intervention of the official machine, are not, and cannot
be solved for ages– received full, unhesitating solution. And this solution was in
favor of Alexey Alexandrovitch’s contention. But Stremov, who had felt stung to the
quick at the last sitting, had, on the reception of the commission’s report, resorted
to tactics which Alexey Alexandrovitch had not anticipated. Stremov, carrying with
him several members, went over to Alexey Alexandrovitch’s side, and not contenting
himself with warmly defending the measure proposed by Karenin, proposed
other more extreme measures in the same direction. These measures, still further
exaggerated in opposition to what was Alexey Alexandrovitch’s fundamental idea,
were passed by the commission, and then the aim of Stremov’s tactics became apparent.
Carried to an extreme, the measures seemed at once to be so absurd that the
highest authorities, and public opinion, and intellectual ladies, and the newspapers,
all at the same time fell foul of them, expressing their indignation both with the measures
and their nominal father, Alexey Alexandrovitch. Stremov drew back, affecting
to have blindly followed Karenin, and to be astounded and distressed at what had
been done. This meant the defeat of Alexey Alexandrovitch. But in spite of failing
health, in spite of his domestic griefs, he did not give in. There was a split in the commission.
Some members, with Stremov at their head, justified their mistake on the
ground that they had put faith in the commission of revision, instituted by Alexey
Alexandrovitch, and maintained that the report of the commission was rubbish, and
simply so much waste paper. Alexey Alexandrovitch, with a following of those who
saw the danger of so revolutionary an attitude to official documents, persisted in upholding
the statements obtained by the revising commission. In consequence of this,
in the higher spheres, and even in society, all was chaos, and although everyone was
interested, no one could tell whether the native tribes really were becoming impoverished
and ruined, or whether they were in a flourishing condition. The position
of Alexey Alexandrovitch, owing to this, and partly owing to the contempt lavished
on him for his wife’s infidelity, became very precarious. And in this position he
took an important resolution. To the astonishment of the commission, he announced
that he should ask permission to go himself to investigate the question on the spot.
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