Anna Karenina
thoughtfully turning over the pages of his manuscript.
“Oh, by the way,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, “I wanted to ask you, some
time when you see Pomorsky, to drop him a hint that I should be very
glad to get that new appointment of secretary of the committee of the
amalgamated agency of the southern railways and banking companies.”
Stepan Arkadyevitch was familiar by now with the title of the post he
coveted, and he brought it out rapidly without mistake.
Alexey Alexandrovitch questioned him as to the duties of this new
committee, and pondered. He was considering whether the new committee
would not be acting in some way contrary to the views he had been
advocating. But as the influence of the new committee was of a very
complex nature, and his views were of very wide application, he could
not decide this straight off, and taking off his pince-nez, he said:
“Of course, I can mention it to him; but what is your reason precisely
for wishing to obtain the appointment?”
“It’s a good salary, rising to nine thousand, and my means....”
“Nine thousand!” repeated Alexey Alexandrovitch, and he frowned. The
high figure of the salary made him reflect that on that side Stepan
Arkadyevitch’s proposed position ran counter to the main tendency of
his own projects of reform, which always leaned towards economy.
“I consider, and I have embodied my views in a note on the subject,
that in our day these immense salaries are evidence of the unsound
economic _assiette_ of our finances.”
“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.
Chapter 18
“Now there is something I want to talk about, and you know what it is.
About Anna,” Stepan Arkadyevitch said, pausing for a brief space, and
shaking off the unpleasant impression.
As soon as Oblonsky uttered Anna’s name, the face of Alexey
Alexandrovitch was completely transformed; all the life was gone out of
it, and it looked weary and dead.
“What is it exactly that you want from me?” he said, moving in his
chair and snapping his pince-nez.
“A definite settlement, Alexey Alexandrovitch, some settlement of the
position. I’m appealing to you” (“not as an injured husband,” Stepan
Arkadyevitch was going to say, but afraid of wrecking his negotiation
by this, he changed the words) “not as a statesman” (which did not
sound _à propos_), “but simply as a man, and a good-hearted man and a
Christian. You must have pity on her,” he said.
“That is, in what way precisely?” Karenin said softly.
“Yes, pity on her. If you had seen her as I have!—I have been spending
all the winter with her—you would have pity on her. Her position is
awful, simply awful!”
“I had imagined,” answered Alexey Alexandrovitch in a higher, almost
shrill voice, “that Anna Arkadyevna had everything she had desired for
herself.”
“Oh, Alexey Alexandrovitch, for heaven’s sake, don’t let us indulge in
recriminations! What is past is past, and you know what she wants and
is waiting for—divorce.”
“But I believe Anna Arkadyevna refuses a divorce, if I make it a
condition to leave me my son. I replied in that sense, and supposed
that the matter was ended. I consider it at an end,” shrieked Alexey
Alexandrovitch.
“But, for heaven’s sake, don’t get hot!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
touching his brother-in-law’s knee. “The matter is not ended. If you
will allow me to recapitulate, it was like this: when you parted, you
were as magnanimous as could possibly be; you were ready to give her
everything—freedom, divorce even. She appreciated that. No, don’t think
that. She did appreciate it—to such a degree that at the first moment,
feeling how she had wronged you, she did not consider and could not
consider everything. She gave up everything. But experience, time, have
shown that her position is unbearable, impossible.”
“The life of Anna Arkadyevna can have no interest for me,” Alexey
Alexandrovitch put in, lifting his eyebrows.
“Allow me to disbelieve that,” Stepan Arkadyevitch replied gently. “Her
position is intolerable for her, and of no benefit to anyone whatever.
She has deserved it, you will say. She knows that and asks you for
nothing; she says plainly that she dare not ask you. But I, all of us,
her relatives, all who love her, beg you, entreat you. Why should she
suffer? Who is any the better for it?”
“Excuse me, you seem to put me in the position of the guilty party,”
observed Alexey Alexandrovitch.
“Oh, no, oh, no, not at all! please understand me,” said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, touching his hand again, as though feeling sure this
physical contact would soften his brother-in-law. “All I say is this:
her position is intolerable, and it might be alleviated by you, and you
will lose nothing by it. I will arrange it all for you, so that you’ll
not notice it. You did promise it, you know.”
“The promise was given before. And I had supposed that the question of
my son had settled the matter. Besides, I had hoped that Anna
Arkadyevna had enough generosity....” Alexey Alexandrovitch articulated
with difficulty, his lips twitching and his face white.
“She leaves it all to your generosity. She begs, she implores one thing
of you—to extricate her from the impossible position in which she is
placed. She does not ask for her son now. Alexey Alexandrovitch, you
are a good man. Put yourself in her position for a minute. The question
of divorce for her in her position is a question of life and death. If
you had not promised it once, she would have reconciled herself to her
position, she would have gone on living in the country. But you
promised it, and she wrote to you, and moved to Moscow. And here she’s
been for six months in Moscow, where every chance meeting cuts her to
the heart, every day expecting an answer. Why, it’s like keeping a
condemned criminal for six months with the rope round his neck,
promising him perhaps death, perhaps mercy. Have pity on her, and I
will undertake to arrange everything. _Vos scrupules_....”
“I am not talking about that, about that....” Alexey Alexandrovitch
interrupted with disgust. “But, perhaps, I promised what I had no right
to promise.”
“So you go back from your promise?”
“I have never refused to do all that is possible, but I want time to
consider how much of what I promised is possible.”
“No, Alexey Alexandrovitch!” cried Oblonsky, jumping up, “I won’t
believe that! She’s unhappy as only an unhappy woman can be, and you
cannot refuse in such....”
“As much of what I promised as is possible. _Vous professez d’être
libre penseur._ But I as a believer cannot, in a matter of such
gravity, act in opposition to the Christian law.”
“But in Christian societies and among us, as far as I’m aware, divorce
is allowed,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Divorce is sanctioned even by
our church. And we see....”
“It is allowed, but not in the sense....”
“Alexey Alexandrovitch, you are not like yourself,” said Oblonsky,
after a brief pause. “Wasn’t it you (and didn’t we all appreciate it in
you?) who forgave everything, and moved simply by Christian feeling was
ready to make any sacrifice? You said yourself: if a man take thy coat,
give him thy cloak also, and now....”
“I beg,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch shrilly, getting suddenly onto his
feet, his face white and his jaws twitching, “I beg you to drop this
... to drop ... this subject!”
“Oh, no! Oh, forgive me, forgive me if I have wounded you,” said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, holding out his hand with a smile of embarrassment; “but
like a messenger I have simply performed the commission given me.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch gave him his hand, pondered a little, and said:
“I must think it over and seek for guidance. The day after tomorrow I
will give you a final answer,” he said, after considering a moment.
Chapter 19
Stepan Arkadyevitch was about to go away when Korney came in to
announce:
“Sergey Alexyevitch!”
“Who’s Sergey Alexyevitch?” Stepan Arkadyevitch was beginning, but he
remembered immediately.
“Ah, Seryozha!” he said aloud. “Sergey Alexyevitch! I thought it was
the director of a department. Anna asked me to see him too,” he
thought.
And he recalled the timid, piteous expression with which Anna had said
to him at parting: “Anyway, you will see him. Find out exactly where he
is, who is looking after him. And Stiva ... if it were possible! Could
it be possible?” Stepan Arkadyevitch knew what was meant by that “if it
were possible,”—if it were possible to arrange the divorce so as to let
her have her son.... Stepan Arkadyevitch saw now that it was no good to