Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FOUR CHAPTER 8
Chapter 8
ALEXEY Alexandrovitch, on coming back from church service, had spent the
whole morning indoors. He had two pieces of business before him that morning;
first, to receive and send on a deputation from the native tribes which was on its
way to Petersburg, and now at Moscow; secondly, to write the promised letter to the
lawyer. The deputation, though it had been summoned at Alexey Alexandrovitch’s
instigation, was not without its discomforting and even dangerous aspect, and he
was glad he had found it in Moscow. The members of this deputation had not the
slightest conception of their duty and the part they were to play. They naïvely believed
that it was their business to lay before the commission their needs and the actual
condition of things, and to ask assistance of the government, and utterly failed
to grasp that some of their statements and requests supported the contention of the
enemy’s side, and so spoiled the whole business. Alexey Alexandrovitch was busily
engaged with them for a long while, drew up a program for them from which they
were not to depart, and on dismissing them wrote a letter to Petersburg for the guidance
of the deputation. He had his chief support in this affair in the Countess Lidia
Ivanovna. She was a specialist in the matter of deputations, and no one knew better
than she how to manage them, and put them in the way they should go. Having
completed this task, Alexey Alexandrovitch wrote the letter to the lawyer. Without
the slightest hesitation he gave him permission to act as he might judge best. In the
letter he enclosed three of Vronsky’s notes to Anna, which were in the portfolio he
had taken away.
Since Alexey Alexandrovitch had left home with the intention of not returning to
his family again, and since he had been at the lawyer’s and had spoken, though only
to one man, of his intention, since especially he had translated the matter from the
world of real life to the world of ink and paper, he had grown more and more used
to his own intention, and by now distinctly perceived the feasibility of its execution.
He was sealing the envelope to the lawyer, when he heard the loud tones of Stepan
Arkadyevitch’s voice. Stepan Arkadyevitch was disputing with Alexey Alexandrovitch’s
servant, and insisting on being announced.
“No matter,” thought Alexey Alexandrovitch, “so much the better. I will inform
him at once of my position in regard to his sister, and explain why it is I can’t dine
with him.”
“Come in!” he said aloud, collecting his papers, and putting them in the blottingpaper.
“There, you see, you’re talking nonsense, and he’s at home!” responded Stepan
Arkadyevitch’s voice, addressing the servant, who had refused to let him in, and
taking off his coat as he went, Oblonsky walked into the room. “Well, I’m awfully
glad I’ve found you! So I hope...” Stepan Arkadyevitch began cheerfully.
“I cannot come,” Alexey Alexandrovitch said coldly, standing and not asking his
visitor to sit down.
Alexey Alexandrovitch had thought to pass at once into those frigid relations in
which he ought to stand with the brother of a wife against whom he was beginning a
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