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Chapter 23.
On Monday there was the usual sitting of the Commission of the
2nd of June. Alexey Alexandrovitch walked into the hall where the
sitting was held, greeted the members and the president, as usual, and
sat down in his place, putting his hand on the papers laid ready before
him. Among these papers lay the necessary evidence and a rough
outline of the speech he intended to make. But he did not really need
these documents. He remembered every point, and did not think it
necessary to go over in his memory what he would say. He knew that
when the time came, and when he saw his enemy facing him, and
studiously endeavoring to assume an expression of indifference, his
speech would flow of itself better than he could prepare it now. He felt
that the import of his speech was of such magnitude that every word of
it would have weight. Meantime, as he listened to the usual report, he
had the most innocent and inoffensive air. No one, looking at his white
hands, with their swollen veins and long fingers, so softly stroking the
edges of the white paper that lay before him, and at the air of weari-
ness with which his head drooped on one side, would have suspected
that in a few minutes a torrent of words would flow from his lips that
would arouse a fearful storm, set the members shouting and attacking
one another, and force the president to call for order. When the report
was over, Alexey Alexandrovitch announced in his subdued, delicate
voice that he had several points to bring before the meeting in regard
to the Commission for the Reorganization of the Native Tribes. All
attention was turned upon him. Alexey Alexandrovitch cleared his
throat, and not looking at his opponent, but selecting, as he always did
while he was delivering his speeches, the first person sitting opposite
him, an inoffensive little old man, who never had an opinion of any sort
in the Commission, began to expound his views. When he reached
the point about the fundamental and radical law, his opponent jumped
up and began to protest. Stremov, who was also a member of the
Commission, and also stung to the quick, began defending himself,
and altogether a stormy sitting followed; but Alexey Alexandrovitch
triumphed, and his motion was carried, three new commissions were
appointed, and the next day in a certain Petersburg circle nothing else
was talked of but this sitting. Alexey Alexandrovitch’s success had
been even greater than he had anticipated.
Next morning, Tuesday, Alexey Alexandrovitch, on waking up, rec-
ollected with pleasure his triumph of the previous day, and he could
not help smiling, though he tried to appear indifferent, when the chief
secretary of his department, anxious to flatter him, informed him of the
rumors that had reached him concerning what had happened in the
Commission.
Absorbed in business with the chief secretary, Alexey
Alexandrovitch had completely forgotten that it was Tuesday, the day
fixed by him for the return of Anna Arkadyevna, and he was surprised
and received a shock of annoyance when a servant came in to inform
him of her arrival.
Anna had arrived in Petersburg early in the morning; the carriage
had been sent to meet her in accordance with her telegram, and so
Alexey Alexandrovitch might have known of her arrival. But when