第221章

`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 Putiatov have received the order of Alexandre 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 brass,' 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 Peterburg. I met her yesterday with Alexei Vronsky, bras dessus, bras dessous, on the Morskaia.'

` 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 Alexei Alexandrovich, 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 Alexei Alexandrovich 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 Alexei Alexandrovich 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 Alexei Alexandrovich had reached his predestined 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 Alexei Alexandrovich 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.

Alexei Alexandrovich did not merely fail to observe his hopeless position in the official world, he was not merely free from anxiety on this head - he was positively more satisfied than ever with his own activity.

`He that is married careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife; he that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord,' says the Apostle Paul, and Alexei Alexandrovich, who was now guided in every action by Scripture, often recalled this text. It seemed to him that ever since he had been left without a wife, he had, in these very projects of reform, been serving the Lord more zealously than ever.

The unmistakable impatience of the member of the Council trying to get away from him did not trouble Alexei Alexandrovich; he gave up his exposition only when the member of the Council, seizing his chance when one of the Imperial family was passing, slipped away from him.

Left alone, Alexei Alexandrovich looked down, collecting his thoughts, then looked casually about him and walked toward the door, where he hoped to meet Countess Lidia Ivanovna.

`And how strong they all are - how sound physically,' thought Alexei Alexandrovich, looking at the powerfully built gentleman of the bedchamber with his well-groomed, perfumed whiskers, and at the red neck of the Prince, pinched by his tight uniform. He had to pass them on his way. `Truly is it said that all the world is evil,' he thought, with another sidelong glance at the calves of the gentleman of the bedchamber.

Moving forward deliberately, Alexei Alexandrovich bowed with his customary air of weariness and dignity to the gentleman who had been talking about him, and, looking toward the door, his eyes sought Countess Lidia Ivanovna.

`Ah! Alexei Alexandrovich!' said the little old man, with a malicious light in his eyes, at the moment when Karenin had come up to them, and was nodding with a frigid gesture. `I haven't congratulated you yet,' said the old man, pointing to his newly received ribbon.

`Thank you,' answered Alexei Alexandrovich. `What an exquisite day today,' he added, laying emphasis in his peculiar way on the word exquisite .

That they laughed at him he was well aware, but he did not expect anything but hostility from them; he was used to that by now.

Catching sight of the yellow shoulders of Lidia Ivanovna jutting out above her corset, and her fine pensive eyes summoning him to her, Alexei Alexandrovich smiled, revealing untarnished white teeth, and went toward her.