Anna Karenina
was softened by the recognition of the inevitability of mistakes and
the possibility of reform in every department. In the new public law
courts he disliked the restrictions laid on the lawyers conducting
cases. But till then he had had nothing to do with the law courts, and
so had disapproved of their publicity simply in theory; now his
disapprobation was strengthened by the unpleasant impression made on
him in the lawyer’s waiting room.
“Coming immediately,” said the clerk; and two minutes later there did
actually appear in the doorway the large figure of an old solicitor who
had been consulting with the lawyer himself.
The lawyer was a little, squat, bald man, with a dark, reddish beard,
light-colored long eyebrows, and an overhanging brow. He was attired as
though for a wedding, from his cravat to his double watch-chain and
varnished boots. His face was clever and manly, but his dress was
dandified and in bad taste.
“Pray walk in,” said the lawyer, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch; and,
gloomily ushering Karenin in before him, he closed the door.
“Won’t you sit down?” He indicated an armchair at a writing-table
covered with papers. He sat down himself, and, rubbing his little hands
with short fingers covered with white hairs, he bent his head on one
side. But as soon as he was settled in this position a moth flew over
the table. The lawyer, with a swiftness that could never have been
expected of him, opened his hands, caught the moth, and resumed his
former attitude.
“Before beginning to speak of my business,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch,
following the lawyer’s movements with wondering eyes, “I ought to
observe that the business about which I have to speak to you is to be
strictly private.”
The lawyer’s overhanging reddish mustaches were parted in a scarcely
perceptible smile.
“I should not be a lawyer if I could not keep the secrets confided to
me. But if you would like proof....”
Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced at his face, and saw that the shrewd,
gray eyes were laughing, and seemed to know all about it already.
“You know my name?” Alexey Alexandrovitch resumed.
“I know you and the good”—again he caught a moth—“work you are doing,
like every Russian,” said the lawyer, bowing.
Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed, plucking up his courage. But having once
made up his mind he went on in his shrill voice, without timidity—or
hesitation, accentuating here and there a word.
“I have the misfortune,” Alexey Alexandrovitch began, “to have been
deceived in my married life, and I desire to break off all relations
with my wife by legal means—that is, to be divorced, but to do this so
that my son may not remain with his mother.”
The lawyer’s gray eyes tried not to laugh, but they were dancing with
irrepressible glee, and Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that it was not
simply the delight of a man who has just got a profitable job: there
was triumph and joy, there was a gleam like the malignant gleam he saw
in his wife’s eyes.
“You desire my assistance in securing a divorce?”
“Yes, precisely so; but I ought to warn you that I may be wasting your
time and attention. I have come simply to consult you as a preliminary
step. I want a divorce, but the form in which it is possible is of
great consequence to me. It is very possible that if that form does not
correspond with my requirements I may give up a legal divorce.”
“Oh, that’s always the case,” said the lawyer, “and that’s always for
you to decide.”
He let his eyes rest on Alexey Alexandrovitch’s feet, feeling that he
might offend his client by the sight of his irrepressible amusement. He
looked at a moth that flew before his nose, and moved his hands, but
did not catch it from regard for Alexey Alexandrovitch’s position.
“Though in their general features our laws on this subject are known to
me,” pursued Alexey Alexandrovitch, “I should be glad to have an idea
of the forms in which such things are done in practice.”
“You would be glad,” the lawyer, without lifting his eyes, responded,
adopting, with a certain satisfaction, the tone of his client’s
remarks, “for me to lay before you all the methods by which you could
secure what you desire?”
And on receiving an assuring nod from Alexey Alexandrovitch, he went
on, stealing a glance now and then at Alexey Alexandrovitch’s face,
which was growing red in patches.
“Divorce by our laws,” he said, with a slight shade of disapprobation
of our laws, “is possible, as you are aware, in the following cases....
Wait a little!” he called to a clerk who put his head in at the door,
but he got up all the same, said a few words to him, and sat down
again. “... In the following cases: physical defect in the married
parties, desertion without communication for five years,” he said,
crooking a short finger covered with hair, “adultery” (this word he
pronounced with obvious satisfaction), “subdivided as follows” (he
continued to crook his fat fingers, though the three cases and their
subdivisions could obviously not be classified together): “physical
defect of the husband or of the wife, adultery of the husband or of the
wife.” As by now all his fingers were used up, he uncrooked all his
fingers and went on: “This is the theoretical view; but I imagine you
have done me the honor to apply to me in order to learn its application
in practice. And therefore, guided by precedents, I must inform you
that in practice cases of divorce may all be reduced to the
following—there’s no physical defect, I may assume, nor desertion?...”
Alexey Alexandrovitch bowed his head in assent.
“—May be reduced to the following: adultery of one of the married
parties, and the detection in the fact of the guilty party by mutual
agreement, and failing such agreement, accidental detection. It must be
admitted that the latter case is rarely met with in practice,” said the
lawyer, and stealing a glance at Alexey Alexandrovitch he paused, as a
man selling pistols, after enlarging on the advantages of each weapon,
might await his customer’s choice. But Alexey Alexandrovitch said
nothing, and therefore the lawyer went on: “The most usual and simple,
the sensible course, I consider, is adultery by mutual consent. I
should not permit myself to express it so, speaking with a man of no
education,” he said, “but I imagine that to you this is
comprehensible.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch was, however, so perturbed that he did not
immediately comprehend all the good sense of adultery by mutual
consent, and his eyes expressed this uncertainty; but the lawyer
promptly came to his assistance.
“People cannot go on living together—here you have a fact. And if both
are agreed about it, the details and formalities become a matter of no
importance. And at the same time this is the simplest and most certain
method.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch fully understood now. But he had religious
scruples, which hindered the execution of such a plan.
“That is out of the question in the present case,” he said. “Only one
alternative is possible: undesigned detection, supported by letters
which I have.”
At the mention of letters the lawyer pursed up his lips, and gave
utterance to a thin little compassionate and contemptuous sound.
“Kindly consider,” he began, “cases of that kind are, as you are aware,
under ecclesiastical jurisdiction; the reverend fathers are fond of
going into the minutest details in cases of that kind,” he said with a
smile, which betrayed his sympathy with the reverend fathers’ taste.
“Letters may, of course, be a partial confirmation; but detection in
the fact there must be of the most direct kind, that is, by
eyewitnesses. In fact, if you do me the honor to intrust your
confidence to me, you will do well to leave me the choice of the
measures to be employed. If one wants the result, one must admit the
means.”
“If it is so....” Alexey Alexandrovitch began, suddenly turning white;
but at that moment the lawyer rose and again went to the door to speak
to the intruding clerk.
“Tell her we don’t haggle over fees!” he said, and returned to Alexey
Alexandrovitch.
On his way back he caught unobserved another moth. “Nice state my rep
curtains will be in by the summer!” he thought, frowning.
“And so you were saying?...” he said.
“I will communicate my decision to you by letter,” said Alexey
Alexandrovitch, getting up, and he clutched at the table. After
standing a moment in silence, he said: “From your words I may
consequently conclude that a divorce may be obtained? I would ask you
to let me know what are your terms.”
“It may be obtained if you give me complete liberty of action,” said
the lawyer, not answering his question. “When can I reckon on receiving
information from you?” he asked, moving towards the door, his eyes and
his varnished boots shining.
“In a week’s time. Your answer as to whether you will undertake to
conduct the case, and on what terms, you will be so good as to
communicate to me.”
“Very good.”
The lawyer bowed respectfully, let his client out of the door, and,
left alone, gave himself up to his sense of amusement. He felt so
mirthful that, contrary to his rules, he made a reduction in his terms
to the haggling lady, and gave up catching moths, finally deciding that
next winter he must have the furniture covered with velvet, like
Sigonin’s.
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