Unconsciously going over in his memory the conversations that had

taken place during and after dinner, Alexey Alexandrovitch

returned to his solitary room. Darya Alexandrovna's words about

forgiveness had aroused in him nothing but annoyance. The

applicability or non-applicability of the Christian precept to

his own case was too difficult a question to be discussed

lightly, and this question had long ago been answered by Alexey

Alexandrovitch in the negative. Of all that had been said, what

stuck most in his memory was the phrase of stupid, good-natured

Turovtsin--"_Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and shot

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him!_" Everyone had apparently shared this feeling, though from

politeness they had not expressed it.

"But the matter is settled, it's useless thinking about it,"

Alexey Alexandrovitch told himself. And thinking of nothing but

the journey before him, and the revision work he had to do, he

went into his room and asked the porter who escorted him where

his man was. The porter said that the man had only just gone

out. Alexey Alexandrovitch ordered tea to be sent him, sat down

to the table, and taking the guidebook, began considering the

route of his journey.

"Two telegrams," said his manservant, coming into the room. "I

beg your pardon, your excellency; I'd only just that minute gone

out."

Alexey Alexandrovitch took the telegrams and opened them. The

first telegram was the announcement of Stremov's appointment to

the very post Karenin had coveted. Alexey Alexandrovitch flung

the telegram down, and flushing a little, got up and began to

pace up and down the room. "_Quos vult perdere dementat_," he

said, meaning by _quos_ the persons responsible for this

appointment. He was not so much annoyed that he had not received

the post, that he had been conspicuously passed over; but it was

incomprehensible, amazing to him that they did not see that the

wordy phrase-monger Stremov was the last man fit for it. How

could they fail to see how they were ruining themselves, lowering

their _prestige_ by this appointment?

"Something else in the same line," he said to himself bitterly,

opening the second telegram. The telegram was from his wife.

Her name, written in blue pencil, "Anna," was the first thing

that caught his eye. "I am dying; I beg, I implore you to come.

I shall die easier with your forgiveness," he read. He smiled

contemptuously, and flung down the telegram. That this was a

trick and a fraud, of that, he thought for the first minute,

there could be no doubt.




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