Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SEVEN CHAPTER 17
“But what’s to be done?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Suppose a bank director
gets ten thousand–well, he’s worth it; or an engineer gets twenty thousand–after all,
it’s a growing thing, you know!”
“I assume that a salary is the price paid for a commodity, and it ought to conform
with the law of supply and demand. If the salary is fixed without any regard for that
law, as, for instance, when I see two engineers leaving college together, both equally
well trained and efficient, and one getting forty thousand while the other is satisfied
with two; or when I see lawyers and hussars, having no special qualifications, appointed
directors of banking companies with immense salaries, I conclude that the
salary is not fixed in accordance with the law of supply and demand, but simply
through personal interest. And this is an abuse of great gravity in itself, and one that
reacts injuriously on the government service. I consider...”
Stepan Arkadyevitch made haste to interrupt his brother-in-law.
“Yes; but you must agree that it’s a new institution of undoubted utility that’s being
started. After all, you know, it’s a growing thing! What they lay particular stress
on is the thing being carried on honestly,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch with emphasis.
But the Moscow significance of the word “honest” was lost on Alexey Alexandrovitch.
“Honesty is only a negative qualification,” he said.
“Well, you’ll do me a great service, anyway,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, “by
putting in a word to Pomorsky–just in the way of conversation....”
“But I fancy it’s more in Volgarinov’s hands,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch.
“Volgarinov has fully assented, as far as he’s concerned,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
turning red. Stepan Arkadyevitch reddened at the mention of that name, because
he had been that morning at the Jew Volgarinov’s, and the visit had left an
unpleasant recollection.
Stepan Arkadyevitch believed most positively that the committee in which he was
trying to get an appointment was a new, genuine, and honest public body, but that
morning when Volgarinov had– intentionally, beyond a doubt–kept him two hours
waiting with other petitioners in his waiting room, he had suddenly felt uneasy.
Whether he was uncomfortable that he, a descendant of Rurik, Prince Oblonsky,
had been kept for two hours waiting to see a Jew, or that for the first time in his life he
was not following the example of his ancestors in serving the government, but was
turning off into a new career, anyway he was very uncomfortable. During those two
hours in Volgarinov’s waiting room Stepan Arkadyevitch, stepping jauntily about
the room, pulling his whiskers, entering into conversation with the other petitioners,
and inventing an epigram on his position, assiduously concealed from others, and
even from himself, the feeling he was experiencing.
But all the time he was uncomfortable and angry, he could not have said why–
whether because he could not get his epigram just right, or from some other reason.
When at last Volgarinov had received him with exaggerated politeness and unmistakable
triumph at his humiliation, and had all but refused the favor asked of him,
Stepan Arkadyevitch had made haste to forget it all as soon as possible. And now,
at the mere recollection, he blushed.
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