Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Seven/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
The affairs of Stepan Arkadyevitch had reached a critical stage.
The money brought by the sale of two-thirds of the timber had long ago been spent, and he had obtained from the merchant at a discount of ten per cent a large part of the remaining third in advance. Now the merchant would not advance anything more; as Dolly, for the first time in her life asserting her rights to her personal property, had refused her signature to the contract when it was proposed to give a receipt for the sale of the last third of the wood. All the salary was used up for household expenses, and for the payment of unavoidable debts. There was absolutely no money to be had.
It was disagreeable and awkward, and Stepan Arkadyevitch felt that it ought not to be continued. The reason of it, in his opinion, lay in the fact that he got too small a salary. The place which he held had been very good five years before, but it was so no longer. Petrof, the director of a bank, got twelve thousand; Sventitsky, a member of the Council, got seventeen thousand; Mitin, the head of a bank, got fifty thousand.
"Apparently I have been asleep, and they have forgotten me," said Stepan Arkadyevitch to himself; and he began to keep his eyes and ears open; and at the end of the winter he discovered a very good place, and matured his attack upon it, beginning at Moscow through his uncles, his aunts, and his friends, and then, when the time seemed ripe in the spring, he himself went down to Petersburg.
It was one of those lucrative sinecure places which nowadays are found, varying in importance, worth any where from 1000 to 50,000 rubles a year. This place was in the Commission of the Consolidated Agency for the Mutual Credit-Balance of the Southern Railway and Banking Establishments. This place, like all such places, required at once such varied talents and such extraordinary activity, that it was hard to find them united in one person; but since it was hopeless to find any one with all these qualities, it was certainly better that the man put in should be an honest rather than a dishonest man.
Now Stepan Arkadyevitch was an honest man in every sense of the term; for in Moscow the word chestnui, meaning honest, has two significations, depending on its accent. They speak of an honest agent, an honest writer, an honest journal, an honest institution; and it means not only that men or institutions are not dishonest, but that they know how to adapt themselves to circumstances. Stepan Arkadyevitch belonged in Moscow to that class of people who used that convenient word; and, as he passed for honest, he therefore felt that he had a better right than any one else to that place.This place was worth from 7000 to 10,000 rubles a year; and Oblonsky could accept this position, and not resign his present duties. Everything depended on two ministers, a lady, and two Jews; and, although they were ready to grant what he wished, he had to go to Petersburg to solicit their aid. Moreover, he faithfully promised Anna that he would obtain from Karenin a decisive answer about the divorce, and, having extorted fifty rubles from Dolly, he set out for Petersburg.
Sitting in Karenin's library and listening to his exposition of a project for reforming the status of Russian finance, Stepan Arkadyevitch waited as patiently as he could till he might put in a word about his personal affairs and about Anna.
"Yes! That is very true," said he, when Alekseï Aleksandrovitch took off the pince-nez without which he could not read now, and looked inquiringly at his brother-in-law; "that is very true in detail; but nevertheless, the leading principle of our age is liberty."
"Yes, but I advocate another principle which embraces freedom," replied Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, accenting the word "embraces," and putting on his pince-nez to read over the passage where he had said that very thing.
And, turning over the pages of his elegantly written manuscript, with its wide margins, he again read the concluding paragraph:—
"For if I sustain the protectionist system, it is not for the advantage of private individuals, but for the general good, for all classes alike, both low and high; and it is that which they will not understand," added he, looking over his pince-nez at Oblonsky, "absorbed as they are in their personal interests, and so easily satisfied with phrases."
Stepan Arkadyevitch knew that when Karenin began to speak of what was said and done by those who were opposed to his views, and who were the source of all evil in Russia, he was nearing the end; and so he willingly renounced his "principle of liberty," and agreed with him. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch came to a pause, and turned over the leaves of his manuscript with a thoughtful air.
"Oh, by the way," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "I wanted to ask you, in case you should meet Pomorsky, to say a little word to him for me; that I should very much like to be appointed a member of the Commission of the Combined Agencies of the Mutual Credit-Balance of the Railways of the South." To Stepan Arkadyevitch the name[1] of this position which was so dear to his heart was already very familiar, and he could rattle it off with great rapidity and without making a mistake.
Alekseï Aleksandrovitch asked what the functions of this new commission were to be, and then he reflected. It seemed to him that the existence of this commission was directly opposed to his projects of reform. But as the operations of this commission were very complicated, and his own projects of reform occupied a very vast field, he felt that he could not settle this question at a glance, and, taking off his pince-nez, he said:—
"Without doubt I could speak to him; but why are you especially desirous to have this place?"
"The salary is good,—nine thousand rubles,—and my means...."
"Nine thousand rubles!" repeated Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, and he frowned. The high emolument of this position reminded him that Stepan Arkadyevitch's supposititious function was directly opposed to the principal feature of his projects, which always inclined to economy.
"I believe, and I show in my pamphlet, that in our day these enormous salaries are signs of the defectiveness of the economic assiette of our administration."
"Yes; but what would you have?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Now let us see! A bank director gets ten thousand, he is worth it; or an engineer gets twenty thousand. These are not sinecures."
"I opine that salaries are payments for merchandise, and ought to be subject to the law of supply and demand. If salaries are not subject to this law,—if, for example, I see two engineers of equal capacity, having pursued the same studies at the institute, one receiving forty thousand rubles, while the other contents himself with two thousand; or if I see a hussar, who has no special knowledge, become director of a bank with a phenomenal salary, I conclude that these salaries are fixed, not in accordance with the law of supply and demand, but by sheer partiality. And so, here is an abuse, great in itself and disastrous in its influence on the imperial service. I opine...."
Stepan Arkadyevitch made haste to interrupt his brother-in-law:—
"Yes, but you agree that a new and undoubtedly useful institution has been opened. It's a live thing, and it is certainly worth while to have it conducted honestly," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, emphasizing the adjective.
But the Muscovite signification of the adjective had no force for Alekseï Aleksandrovitch.
"Honesty is only negative merit," he replied.
"But you will do me a great favor, nevertheless," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "if you will speak a little word to Pomorsky. .... When you happen to meet him, you know."
"Yes, certainly; but it seems to me that this depends more on Bolgarinof," said Alekseï Aleksandrovitch.
"Bolgarinof on his part is well disposed," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, reddening. Stepan Arkadyevitch reddened at the remembrance of Bolgarinof, because that very morning he had been at the Jew's house, and this visit had remained as an unpleasant recollection.
Stepan Arkadyevitch knew perfectly well that the commission of which he wished to become a member was a new, important, and honorable enterprise; but that morning, when Bolgarinof, evidently with malice prepense, kept him with other petitioners waiting in his reception-room for two hours, the whole affair became awkward to him.
Whether it was awkward to him that he, a descendant of Rurik, a Prince Oblonsky, had to wait two hours in the Jew's reception-room, or because he, for the first time in his life, was not following the example of his ancestors in serving the government, but had got into a new field, at all events it was awkward.
During these two hours of waiting at Bolgarinof's, Stepan Arkadyevitch, briskly walking up and down through the reception-room, smoothing his side whiskers, occasionally entering into conversation with the other petitioners, and trying to work out a pun on his long waiting at the Jew's, diligently concealed from the others, and also from himself, the trying feeling. But all that time he felt awkward and annoyed, he did not know why; it was either because he had not succeeded very well with his pun on the word Jew—how he had to chew[2] on the cud of expectation—or for some other reason.
When at last Bolgarinof, with excessive humility, received him, evidently triumphing in his humiliation, and almost refused his request, Stepan Arkadyevitch made haste to forget it all. But now, remembering it again, he reddened with shame.