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`I assume that a salary is the price paid for a commodity, and it ought to conform with the law of supply and demand. If the salary is fixed without any regard for that law, as, for instance, when I see two engineers leaving college together, both equally well trained and efficient, and one getting forty thousand while the other is satisfied with two; or when I see lawyers and hussars, having no special qualifications, appointed directors of banking companies with immense salaries, I conclude that the salary is not fixed in accordance with the law of supply and demand, but simply through personal interest. And this is an abuse of great gravity in itself, and one that reacts injuriously on the government service. Iconsider...'

Stepan Arkadyevich made haste to interrupt his brother-in-law.

`Yes; but you must agree that the new institution being started is of undoubted utility. After all, you know, it's a growing thing! What they lay particular stress on is the thing being carried on honestly,'

said Stepan Arkadyevich with emphasis.

But the Moscow significance of the word honest was lost on Alexei Alexandrovich.

`Honesty is only a negative qualification,' he said.

`Well, you'll do me a great service, anyway,' said Stepan Arkadyevich, `by putting in a word to Pomorsky - just in the way of conversation...'

`But I fancy it depends more on Bolgarinov,' said Alexei Alexandrovich.

`Bolgarinov has fully assented, as far as he's concerned,' said Stepan Arkadyevich, turning red. Stepan Arkadyevich reddened at the mention of that name, because he had been that morning at the Jew Bolgarinov's, and the visit had left an unpleasant recollection.

Stepan Arkadyevich believed most positively that the committee in which he was trying to get an appointment was a new, genuine, and honest public body, but that morning when Bolgarinov had - intentionally, beyond a doubt - kept him two hours waiting with other petitioners in his waiting room, he had suddenly felt uneasy.

Whether he was uncomfortable because he, a descendant of Rurik, Prince Oblonsky, had been kept for two hours waiting to see a Jew, or that for the first time in his fife he was not following the example of his ancestors in serving the government, but was turning off into a new career - at any rate he was very uncomfortable. During those two hours in Bolgarinov's waiting room Stepan Arkadyevich, stepping jauntily about the room, pulling his side whiskers, entering into conversation with the other petitioners, and inventing a calembour dealing with his wait in the Jew's anteroom, assiduously concealed from others, and even from himself, the feeling he was experiencing.

But all the time he was uncomfortable and perturbed, he could not have said why - whether because he could not get his calembour just right, or from some other reason. When at last Bolgarinov had received him with exaggerated politeness and unmistakable triumph at his humiliation, and had all but refused the favor asked of him, Stepan Arkadyevich had made haste to forget it all as soon as possible. And now, at the mere recollection, he blushed.

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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 7, Chapter 18[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 18 `Now there is something I want to talk about, and you know what it is...

about Anna,' Stepan Arkadyevich said, pausing for a brief space, and shaking off the unpleasant impression.

As soon as Oblonsky uttered Anna's name, the face of Alexei Alexandrovich became completely transformed; all the life went out of it, and it looked weary and dead.

`What is it exactly that you want from me?' he said, moving in his chair and snapping his pince-nez .

`A definite settlement, Alexei Alexandrovich - some settlement of the situation. I'm appealing to you' (`not as to an injured husband,'

Stepan Arkadyevich was going to say, but, afraid of wrecking his negotiation by this, he changed the words) `not as to a statesman' (which did not sound apropos), `but simply as to a man, and a goodhearted man, and a Christian.

You must have pity on her,' he said.

`That is, in what way, precisely?' Karenin said softly.

`Yes, pity on her. If you had seen her as I have! - I have been spending all the winter with her - you would have pity on her. Her position is awful, simply awful!'

`I had imagined,' answered Alexei Alexandrovich in a higher, almost shrill voice, `that Anna Arkadyevna had everything she had desired for herself.'

`Oh, Alexei Alexandrovich, for God's sake, let's not indulge in recriminations! What is past is past, and you know what she wants and is waiting for - a divorce.'

`But I believe Anna Arkadyevna refuses a divorce, if I make it a condition to leave me my son. I replied in that sense, and supposed that the matter was ended. I consider it at an end,' shrieked Alexei Alexandrovich.

`But, for heaven's sake, don't get excited!' said Stepan Arkadyevich, touching his brother-in-law's knee. `The matter is not ended. If you will allow me to recapitulate, it was like this: when you parted, you were as magnanimous as could possibly be; you were ready to give her everything - freedom, even divorce. She appreciated that. No, make no doubt. She did appreciate it - to such a degree that, at the first moment, feeling how she had wronged you, she did not consider and could not consider everything.

She gave up everything. But experience, time, have shown that her position is unbearable, impossible.'

`The life of Anna Arkadyevna can have no interest for me,' Alexei Alexandrovich put in, raising his eyebrows.

`Allow me to disbelieve that,' Stepan Arkadyevich replied gently.

`Her position is intolerable for her, and of no benefit to anyone whatever.

She has deserved it, you will say. She knows that and asks you for nothing;she says plainly that she dare not ask you. But I, all of us - her relatives, all who love her - beg you, entreat you. Why should she suffer? Who is any the better for it?'

`Excuse me, you seem to put me in the position of the guilty party,'