The levee was drawing to a close. People met as they were going
away, and gossiped of the latest news, of the newly bestowed
honors and the changes in the positions of the higher
functionaries.
"If only Countess Marya Borissovna were Minister of War, and
Princess Vatkovskaya were Commander-in-Chief," said a
gray-headed, little old man in a gold-embroidered uniform,
addressing a tall, handsome maid of honor who had questioned him
about the new appointments.
"And me among the adjutants," said the maid of honor, smiling.
"You have an appointment already. You're over the ecclesiastical
department. And your assistant's Karenin."
"Good-day, prince!" said the little old man to a man who came up
to him.
"What were you saying of Karenin?" said the prince.
"He and Putyatov have received the Alexander Nevsky."
"I thought he had it already."
"No. Just look at him," said the little old man, pointing with
his embroidered hat to Karenin in a court uniform with the new
red ribbon across his shoulders, standing in the doorway of the
hall with an influential member of the Imperial Council.
"Pleased and happy as a brass farthing," he added, stopping to
shake hands with a handsome gentleman of the bedchamber of
colossal proportions.
"No; he's looking older," said the gentleman of the bedchamber.
"From overwork. He's always drawing up projects nowadays. He
won't let a poor devil go nowadays till he's explained it all to
him under heads."
"Looking older, did you say? _Il fait des passions_. I believe
Countess Lidia Ivanovna's jealous now of his wife."
"Oh, come now, please don't say any harm of Countess Lidia
Ivanovna."
"Why, is there any harm in her being in love with Karenin?"
"But is it true Madame Karenina's here?"
"Well, not here in the palace, but in Petersburg. I met her
yesterday with Alexey Vronsky, _bras dessous, bras dessous_,
in the Morsky."
"C'est un homme qui n'a pas..." the gentleman of the bedchamber
was beginning, but he stopped to make room, bowing, for a member
of the Imperial family to pass.
Thus people talked incessantly of Alexey Alexandrovitch, finding
fault with him and laughing at him, while he, blocking up the way
of the member of the Imperial Council he had captured, was
explaining to him point by point his new financial project, never
interrupting his discourse for an instant for fear he should
escape.
Almost at the same time that his wife left Alexey Alexandrovitch
there had come to him that bitterest moment in the life of an
official--the moment when his upward career comes to a full stop.
This full stop had arrived and everyone perceived it, but Alexey
Alexandrovitch himself was not yet aware that his career was
over. Whether it was due to his feud with Stremov, or his
misfortune with his wife, or simply that Alexey Alexandrovitch
had reached his destined limits, it had become evident to
everyone in the course of that year that his career was at an
end. He still filled a position of consequence, he sat on many
commissions and committees, but he was a man whose day was over,
and from whom nothing was expected. Whatever he said, whatever
he proposed, was heard as though it were something long familiar,
and the very thing that was not needed. But Alexey
Alexandrovitch was not aware of this, and, on the contrary, being
cut off from direct participation in governmental activity, he
saw more clearly than ever the errors and defects in the action
of others, and thought it his duty to point out means for their
correction. Shortly after his separation from his wife, he began
writing his first note on the new judicial procedure, the first
of the endless series of notes he was destined to write in the
future.