"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?"

Alexey Alexandrovitch pondered, as it seemed to the clerk, and

all at once, turning round, he sat down at the table. Letting

his head sink into his hands, he sat for a long while in that

position, several times attempted to speak and stopped short.

Korney, perceiving his master's emotion, asked the clerk to call

another time. Left alone, Alexey Alexandrovitch recognized that

he had not the strength to keep up the line of firmness and

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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 face of the

clerk and of Korney, and of everyone, without exception, whom he

had met during those 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 torn 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 Petersburg 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.

Alexey Alexandrovitch grew up an orphan. There were two

brothers. They did not remember their father, and their mother

died when Alexey Alexandrovitch 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 Tsar, had

brought them up.

On completing his high school and university courses with medals,

Alexey Alexandrovitch 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 afterwards

in the service, Alexey Alexandrovitch 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

Alexey Alexandrovitch's marriage.




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