‘Nine thousand,’ Alexei Alexandrovich repeated and frowned. The high figure of the salary reminded him that this aspect of Stepan Arkadyich’s intended activity was contrary to the main sense of his proposals, which always tended towards economy.
‘I find, and I’ve written a memorandum about it, that in our time these huge salaries are signs of the false economic
‘But what do you want?’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘Well, suppose a bank director gets ten thousand - but he deserves it. Or an engineer gets twenty thousand. It’s a living matter, like it or not!’
‘I think that a salary is payment for value received, and it should be subject to the law of supply and demand. And if the appointed salary departs from that law, as when I see two engineers graduate from an institute, both equally capable and knowledgeable, and one gets forty thousand and the other contents himself with two, or when lawyers or hussars who have no special professional knowledge are made directors of banking companies, I conclude that salaries are appointed not by the law of supply and demand but directly by personal influence. And there is an abuse here, important in itself and with an adverse effect on government functions. I believe ...’
Stepan Arkadyich hastened to interrupt his brother-in-law.
‘Yes, but you must agree that a new, unquestionably useful institution is being opened. Like it or not, it’s a living matter! They especially value things being done hónestly,’ Stepan Arkadyich said with emphasis.
But the Moscow meaning of ‘honesty’ was incomprehensible to Alexei Alexandrovich.
‘Honesty is merely a negative quality,’ he said.
‘But you’ll do me a great favour in any case,’ Stepan Arkadyich said, ‘if you mention it to Pomorsky. Just in passing ...’
‘Though it depends more on Bolgarinov, I think,’ said Alexei Alexandrovich.
‘Bolgarinov, for his part, is in complete agreement,’ Stepan Arkadyich said, blushing.
Stepan Arkadyich blushed at the mention of Bolgarinov because he had called on the Jew Bolgarinov that same morning, and the visit had left him with an unpleasant memory. Stepan Arkadyich was firmly convinced that the business he wanted to serve was new, alive and honest; but that morning, when Bolgarinov, obviously on purpose, had made him wait for two hours with the other petitioners in the anteroom, he had suddenly felt awkward.
Whether it was that he, Prince Oblonsky, a descendant of Rurik,20 had waited for two hours in a Jew’s anteroom, or that for the first time in his life he was not following the example of his ancestors by serving the state but was setting out on a new path, in any case he had felt very awkward. During those two hours of waiting at Bolgarinov‘s, Stepan Arkadyich had pertly strutted about the anteroom, smoothing his side-whiskers, striking up conversations with the other petitioners, and devising a pun he intended to tell about how he had had much ajew with a Jew, at pains all the while to conceal his feelings from everyone else and even from himself.
But all that time he had felt vexed and awkward without knowing why: whether because nothing came of the pun, ‘I had
XVIII
‘Now there’s another matter, and you know which one. About Anna,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, after pausing briefly to shake off the unpleasant impression.
The moment Oblonsky pronounced Anna’s name, Alexei Alexandrovich’s face changed completely: instead of the former animation, it expressed fatigue and deadness.
‘What in fact do you want from me, sir?’ he said, turning in his chair and snapping shut his pince-nez.
‘A decision, some sort of decision, Alexei Alexandrovich. I am addressing you now’ (Stepan Arkadyich was going to say ‘not as an offended husband’ but, for fear of thereby ruining everything, he replaced the phrase) ‘not as a statesman’ (which came out inappropriately) ‘but simply as a man, a good man and a Christian. You must take pity on her,’ he said.
‘But for what, in fact?’ Karenin said softly.
‘Yes, take pity on her. If you had seen her as I have - I’ve spent the whole winter with her - you would take pity on her. Her situation is awful, simply awful.’
‘It seems to me,’ Alexei Alexandrovich replied in a higher, almost shrieking voice, ‘that Anna Arkadyevna has everything she herself wanted.’
‘Ah, Alexei Alexandrovich, for God’s sake, let’s not have any recriminations ! What’s past is past, and you know what she wishes and is waiting for - a divorce.’
‘But I took it that Anna Arkadyevna renounced divorce in case I demanded a pledge that our son be left with me. I replied in that sense and thought the matter was ended. And I consider that it is ended,’ Alexei Alexandrovich shrieked.
