A. Karenin ` P.S . - I enclose the money which may be needed for your expenses.' He read the letter through and felt pleased with it, and especially because 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 a 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 a messenger to be delivered to Anna Arkadyevna tomorrow, at the summer villa,' he said, getting up.
`Certainly, Your Excellency; is tea to be served in the study?'
Alexei Alexandrovich 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 les tables Eugubines 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. Alexei Alexandrovich glanced at it. The unfathomable eyes gazed ironically and insolently at him, as they did that night of their last explanation. Insufferably insolent and challenging was the effect in Alexei Alexandrovich's eyes of the black lace about the head, admirably touched in by the painter, the black hair and handsome white hand the fourth finger of which was covered with rings. After looking at the portrait for a minute, Alexei Alexandrovich shuddered so that his lips quivered and produced `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 Eugubine inscriptions. 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 State. Directly the servant had set the tea and left the room, Alexei Alexandrovich got up and went to the writing table. Moving into the middle of the table a portfolio of current 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: Alexei Alexandrovich'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 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 Alexei Alexandrovich's department, and was a glaring example of fruitless expenditure and paper reforms. Alexei Alexandrovich was aware of the truth of this. The irrigation of these lands in the Zaraisky province had been initiated by the predecessor of Alexei Alexandrovich'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. Alexei Alexandrovich had perceived this at once on entering office, and would have liked to lay hands on the business. But at first, when he did not yet feel secure in his position, he knew it would affect too many interests, and would be imprudent; later on he had been engrossed in other questions, and had simply forgotten this case. It went of itself, like all such cases, by the mere force of inertia. (Many people gained their livelihood by this business, especially one highly conscientious and musical family: all the daughters played on stringed instruments, and Alexei Alexandrovich knew the family and had stood godfather to one of the elder daughters.) The raising of this question by a hostile Ministry was in Alexei Alexandrovich's opinion a dishonorable proceeding, seeing that in every Ministry there were things similar and worse, which no one inquired into, for well-known reasons of official etiquette. However, now that the gauntlet 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 Commission of Irrigation of the lands in the Zaraisky province; but in compensation he gave no quarter to the enemy either. He demanded also the appointment of another special commission to inquire into the question of the Native Tribes Organization. The question of the Native Tribes had been brought up incidentally in the Committee of the 2nd of June, and had been pressed forward actively by Alexei Alexandrovich, as one admitting of no delay on account of the deplorable condition of the native tribes. In the Committee this question had been a ground of contention between several Ministries.
