第217章

For the first two days after his wife's departure Alexei Alexandrovich received petitioners and his head clerk, drove to the committee, and went down to dinner in the dining room as usual. Without giving himself a reason for what he was doing, he strained every nerve of his being for those two days, simply to preserve an appearance of composure, and even of indifference.

Answering inquiries about the disposition of Anna Arkadyevna's rooms and belongings, he had exercised immense self-control to appear like a man in whose eyes what had occurred was not unforeseen nor out of the ordinary course of events, and he attained his aim: no one could have detected in him any signs of despair. But on the second day after her departure, when Kornei gave him a bill from a fashionable draper's shop, which Anna had forgotten to pay, and announced that the shopman was waiting, Alexei Alexandrovich told him to show the man up.

`Excuse me, Your Excellency, for venturing to trouble you. But if you direct us to apply to Her Excellency, would you graciously oblige us with her address?'

Alexei Alexandrovich pondered, as it seemed to the shopman, and all at once, turning round, he sat down to the table. Burying his head in his hands, he sat for a long while in that position, made several attempts to speak, and stopped short.

Kornei, perceiving his master's emotion, asked the shopman to call another time. Left alone, Alexei Alexandrovich realized that he had not the strength to keep up the role of firmness and composure any longer.

He gave orders for the carriage that was awaiting him to be taken back, and for no one to be admitted, and he did not go down to dinner.

He felt that he could not endure the weight of universal contempt and exasperation, which he had distinctly seen in the faces of the shopman and of Kornei and of everyone, without exception, whom he had met during these two days. He felt that he could not turn aside from himself the hatred of men, because that hatred did not come from his being bad (in that case he could have tried to be better), but from his being shamefully and repulsively unhappy. He knew that for this, for the very fact that his heart was torn with grief, they would be merciless to him. He felt that men would crush him as dogs strangle a mangled dog, yelping with pain. He knew that his sole means of security against people was to hide his wounds from them, and instinctively he tried to do this for two days, but now he felt incapable of keeping up the unequal struggle.

His despair was even intensified by the consciousness that he was utterly alone in his sorrow. In all Peterburg there was not a human being to whom he could express what he was feeling, who would feel for him, not as a high official, not as a member of society, but simply as a suffering man; indeed, he had not such a one in the whole world.

Alexei Alexandrovich grew up an orphan. There were two brothers.

They did not remember their father, and their mother died when Alexei Alexandrovich was ten years old. The property was a small one. Their uncle, Karenin, a government official of high standing, at one time a favorite of the late Czar, had brought them up.

On completing his high school and university courses with medals, Alexei Alexandrovich had, with his uncle's aid, immediately started in a prominent position in the service, and from that time forward he had devoted himself exclusively to political ambition. In the high school and the university, and afterward in the service, Alexei Alexandrovich had never formed a close friendship with anyone. His brother had been the person nearest to his heart, but he had a post in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was always abroad, where he had died shortly after Alexei Alexandrovich's marriage.

While he was governor of a province, Anna's aunt, a wealthy provincial lady, had brought him - middle-aged as he was, though young for a governor - together with her niece, and had succeeded in putting him in such a position that he had either to declare himself or to leave town. Alexei Alexandrovich hesitated a great while. There were at the time as many reasons for the step as against it, and there was no overbalancing consideration to outweigh his invariable rule of abstaining when in doubt. But Anna's aunt had through a common acquaintance insinuated that he had already compromised the girl, and that he was in honor bound to propose to her. He proposed, and concentrated on his betrothed and his wife all the feeling of which he was capable.

The attachment he felt to Anna precluded in his heart every need of intimate relations with others. And now, among all his acquaintances, he had not one friend. He had plenty of so-called connections, but no friendships.

Alexei Alexandrovich had plenty of people whom he could invite to dinner, to whose sympathy he could appeal in any public affair he was concerned about, whose interest he could reckon upon for anyone he wished to help, with whom he could candidly discuss other people's business and affairs of state. But his relations with these people were confined to one clearly defined channel, and had a certain routine from which it was impossible to depart. There was one man, a comrade of his at the university, with whom he had become friendly later, and with whom he could have spoken of a personal sorrow; but this friend had a post in the Department of Education in a remote part of Russia. Of the people in Peterburg the most intimate and most likely were his head clerk and his doctor.

Mikhail Vassilievich Sludin, the head clerk, was a straightforward, intelligent, goodhearted and conscientious man, and Alexei Alexandrovich was aware of his personal good will. But their five years of official work together seemed to have put a barrier between them that cut off warmer relations.