He read the letter through and felt pleased with it, and
especially that he had remembered to enclose money: there was
not a harsh word, not a reproach in it, nor was there undue
indulgence. Most of all, it was a golden bridge for return.
Folding the letter and smoothing it with a massive ivory knife,
and putting it in an envelope with the money, he rang the bell
with the gratification it always afforded him to use the
well arranged appointments of his writing-table.
"Give this to the courier to be delivered to Anna Arkadyevna
tomorrow at the summer villa," he said, getting up.
"Certainly, your excellency; tea to be served in the study?"
Alexey Alexandrovitch ordered tea to be brought to the study, and
playing with the massive paper-knife, he moved to his easy chair,
near which there had been placed ready for him a lamp and the
French work on Egyptian hieroglyphics that he had begun. Over
the easy chair there hung in a gold frame an oval portrait of
Anna, a fine painting by a celebrated artist. Alexey
Alexandrovitch glanced at it. The unfathomable eyes gazed
ironically and insolently at him. Insufferably insolent and
challenging was the effect in Alexey Alexandrovitch's eyes of the
black lace about the head, admirably touched in by the painter,
the black hair and handsome white hand with one finger lifted,
covered with rings. After looking at the portrait for a minute,
Alexey Alexandrovitch shuddered so that his lips quivered and he
uttered the sound "brrr," and turned away. He made haste to sit
down in his easy chair and opened the book. He tried to read,
but he could not revive the very vivid interest he had felt
before in Egyptian hieroglyphics. He looked at the book and
thought of something else. He thought not of his wife, but of a
complication that had arisen in his official life, which at the
time constituted the chief interest of it. He felt that he had
penetrated more deeply than ever before into this intricate
affair, and that he had originated a leading idea--he could say
it without self-flattery--calculated to clear up the whole
business, to strengthen him in his official career, to discomfit
his enemies, and thereby to be of the greatest benefit to the
government. Directly the servant had set the tea and left the
room, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up and went to the writing-table.
Moving into the middle of the table a portfolio of papers, with a
scarcely perceptible smile of self-satisfaction, he took a pencil
from a rack and plunged into the perusal of a complex report
relating to the present complication. The complication was of
this nature: Alexey Alexandrovitch's characteristic quality as a
politician, that special individual qualification that every
rising functionary possesses, the qualification that with his
unflagging ambition, his reserve, his honesty, and with his
self-confidence had made his career, was his contempt for red
tape, his cutting down of correspondence, his direct contact,
wherever possible, with the living fact, and his economy. It
happened that the famous Commission of the 2nd of June had set on
foot an inquiry into the irrigation of lands in the Zaraisky
province, which fell under Alexey Alexandrovitch's department,
and was a glaring example of fruitless expenditure and paper
reforms. Alexey Alexandrovitch was aware of the truth of this.
The irrigation of these lands in the Zaraisky province had been
initiated by the predecessor of Alexey Alexandrovitch's
predecessor. And vast sums of money had actually been spent and
were still being spent on this business, and utterly
unproductively, and the whole business could obviously lead to
nothing whatever. Alexey Alexandrovitch had perceived this at
once on entering office, and would have liked to lay hands on the
Board of Irrigation. But at first, when he did not yet feel
secure in his position, he knew it would affect too many
interests, and would be injudicious. Later on he had been
engrossed in other questions, and had simply forgotten the Board
of Irrigation. It went of itself, like all such boards, by the
mere force of inertia. (Many people gained their livelihood by
the Board of Irrigation, especially one highly conscientious and
musical family: all the daughters played on stringed instruments,
and Alexey Alexandrovitch knew the family and had stood godfather
to one of the elder daughters.) The raising of this question by a
hostile department was in Alexey Alexandrovitch's opinion a
dishonorable proceeding, seeing that in every department there
were things similar and worse, which no one inquired into, for
well-known reasons of official etiquette. However, now that the
glove had been thrown down to him, he had boldly picked it up and
demanded the appointment of a special commission to investigate
and verify the working of the Board of Irrigation of the lands in
the Zaraisky province. But in compensation he gave no quarter to
the enemy either. He demanded the appointment of another special
commission to inquire into the question of the Native Tribes
Organization Committee. The question of the Native Tribes had
been brought up incidentally in the Commission of the 2nd of
June, and had been pressed forward actively by Alexey
Alexandrovitch as one admitting of no delay on account of the
deplorable condition of the native tribes. In the commission
this question had been a ground of contention between several
departments. The department hostile to Alexey Alexandrovitch
proved that the condition of the native tribes was exceedingly
flourishing, that the proposed reconstruction might be the ruin
of their prosperity, and that if there were anything wrong, it
arose mainly from the failure on the part of Alexey
Alexandrovitch's department to carry out the measures prescribed
by law. Now Alexey Alexandrovitch intended to demand: First,
that a new commission should be formed which should be empowered
to investigate the condition of the native tribes on the spot;
secondly, if it should appear that the condition of the native
tribes actually was such as it appeared to be from the official
documents in the hands of the committee, that another new
scientific commission should be appointed to investigate the
deplorable condition of the native tribes from the--(1)
political, (2) administrative, (3) economic, (4) ethnographical,
(5) material, and (6) religious points of view; thirdly, that
evidence should be required from the rival department of the
measures that had been taken during the last ten years by that
department for averting the disastrous conditions in which the
native tribes were now placed; and fourthly and finally, that
that department explain why it had, as appeared from the evidence
before the committee, from No. 17,015 and 18,038, from December
5, 1863, and June 7, 1864, acted in direct contravention of the
intent of the law T...Act 18, and the note to Act 36. A flash
of eagerness suffused the face of Alexey Alexandrovitch as he
rapidly wrote out a synopsis of these ideas for his own benefit.
Having filled a sheet of paper, he got up, rang, and sent a note
to the chief secretary of his department to look up certain
necessary facts for him. Getting up and walking about the room,
he glanced again at the portrait, frowned, and smiled
contemptuously. After reading a little more of the book on
Egyptian hieroglyphics, and renewing his interest in it, Alexey
Alexandrovitch went to bed at eleven o'clock, and recollecting as
he lay in bed the incident with his wife, he saw it now in by no
means such a gloomy light.