ANNA KARENINA
PART 37
Chapter 5
The
waiting-room of the celebrated Petersburg lawyer was full when Alexey
Alexandrovitch entered it. Three ladies—an old lady, a young lady, and a
merchant’s wife—and three gentlemen—one a German banker with a ring on his
finger, the second a merchant with a beard, and the third a wrathful-looking
government clerk in official uniform, with a cross on his neck—had obviously
been waiting a long while already. Two clerks were writing at tables with
scratching pens. The appurtenances of the writing-tables, about which Alexey
Alexandrovitch was himself very fastidious, were exceptionally good. He could
not help observing this. One of the clerks, without getting up, turned
wrathfully to Alexey Alexandrovitch, half closing his eyes. “What are you
wanting?”
He replied
that he had to see the lawyer on some business.
“He is
engaged,” the clerk responded severely, and he pointed with his pen at the
persons waiting, and went on writing.
“Can’t he
spare time to see me?” said Alexey Alexandrovitch.
“He has no
time free; he is always busy. Kindly wait your turn.”
“Then I
must trouble you to give him my card,” Alexey Alexandrovitch said with dignity,
seeing the impossibility of preserving his incognito.
The clerk
took the card and, obviously not approving of what he read on it, went to the
door.
Alexey
Alexandrovitch was in principle in favour of the publicity of legal
proceedings, though for some higher official considerations he disliked the
application of the principle in Russia, and disapproved of it, as far as he
could disapprove of anything instituted by authority of the Emperor. His whole
life had been spent in administrative work, and consequently, when he did not
approve of anything, his disapproval was softened by the recognition of the
inevitability of mistakes and the possibility of reform in every department. In
the new public law courts he disliked the restrictions laid on the lawyers
conducting cases. But till then he had had nothing to do with the law courts,
and so had disapproved of their publicity simply in theory; now his
disapprobation was strengthened by the unpleasant impression made on him in the
lawyer’s waiting room.
“Coming
immediately,” said the clerk; and two minutes later there did actually appear
in the doorway the large figure of an old solicitor who had been consulting
with the lawyer himself.
The lawyer
was a little, squat, bald man, with a dark, reddish beard, light-collared long
eyebrows, and an overhanging brow. He was attired as though for a wedding, from
his cravat to his double watch-chain and varnished boots. His face was clever
and manly, but his dress was dandified and in bad taste.
“Pray walk
in,” said the lawyer, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch; and, gloomily ushering
Karenin in before him, he closed the door.
“Won’t you
sit down?” He indicated an armchair at a writing-table covered with papers. He
sat down himself, and, rubbing his little hands with short fingers covered with
white hairs, he bent his head on one side. But as soon as he was settled in
this position a moth flew over the table. The lawyer, with a swiftness that
could never have been expected of him, opened his hands, caught the moth, and
resumed his former attitude.
“Before
beginning to speak of my business,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, following the
lawyer’s movements with wondering eyes, “I ought to observe that the business
about which I have to speak to you is to be strictly private.”
The
lawyer’s overhanging reddish moustaches were parted in a scarcely perceptible
smile.
“I should
not be a lawyer if I could not keep the secrets confided to me. But if you
would like proof....”
Alexey
Alexandrovitch glanced at his face, and saw that the shrewd, gray eyes were
laughing, and seemed to know all about it already.
“You know
my name?” Alexey Alexandrovitch resumed.
“I know
you and the good”—again he caught a moth—“work you are doing, like every
Russian,” said the lawyer, bowing.
Alexey
Alexandrovitch sighed, plucking up his courage. But having once made up his
mind he went on in his shrill voice, without timidity—or hesitation,
accentuating here and there a word.
“I have
the misfortune,” Alexey Alexandrovitch began, “to have been deceived in my
married life, and I desire to break off all relations with my wife by legal
means—that is, to be divorced, but to do this so that my son may not remain
with his mother.”
The
lawyer’s gray eyes tried not to laugh, but they were dancing with irrepressible
glee, and Alexey Alexandrovitch saw that it was not simply the delight of a man
who has just got a profitable job: there was triumph and joy, there was a gleam
like the malignant gleam he saw in his wife’s eyes.
“You
desire my assistance in securing a divorce?”
“Yes,
precisely so; but I ought to warn you that I may be wasting your time and
attention. I have come simply to consult you as a preliminary step. I want a
divorce, but the form in which it is possible is of great consequence to me. It
is very possible that if that form does not correspond with my requirements I
may give up a legal divorce.”
“Oh,
that’s always the case,” said the lawyer, “and that’s always for you to
decide.”
He let his
eyes rest on Alexey Alexandrovitch’s feet, feeling that he might offend his
client by the sight of his irrepressible amusement. He looked at a moth that
flew before his nose, and moved his hands, but did not catch it from regard for
Alexey Alexandrovitch’s position.
“Though in
their general features our laws on this subject are known to me,” pursued
Alexey Alexandrovitch, “I should be glad to have an idea of the forms in which
such things are done in practice.”
“You would
be glad,” the lawyer, without lifting his eyes, responded, adopting, with a
certain satisfaction, the tone of his client’s remarks, “for me to lay before
you all the methods by which you could secure what you desire?”
And on
receiving an assuring nod from Alexey Alexandrovitch, he went on, stealing a
glance now and then at Alexey Alexandrovitch’s face, which was growing red in
patches.
“Divorce
by our laws,” he said, with a slight shade of disapprobation of our laws, “is
possible, as you are aware, in the following cases.... Wait a little!” he
called to a clerk who put his head in at the door, but he got up all the same,
said a few words to him, and sat down again. “... In the following cases:
physical defect in the married parties, desertion without communication for
five years,” he said, crooking a short finger covered with hair, “adultery”
(this word he pronounced with obvious satisfaction), “subdivided as follows”
(he continued to crook his fat fingers, though the three cases and their
subdivisions could obviously not be classified together): “physical defect of
the husband or of the wife, adultery of the husband or of the wife.” As by now
all his fingers were used up, he uncrooked all his fingers and went on: “This
is the theoretical view; but I imagine you have done me the honour to apply to
me in order to learn its application in practice. And therefore, guided by
precedents, I must inform you that in practice cases of divorce may all be
reduced to the following—there’s no physical defect, I may assume, nor
desertion?...”
Alexey
Alexandrovitch bowed his head in assent.
“—May be
reduced to the following: adultery of one of the married parties, and the
detection in the fact of the guilty party by mutual agreement, and failing such
agreement, accidental detection. It must be admitted that the latter case is
rarely met with in practice,” said the lawyer, and stealing a glance at Alexey
Alexandrovitch he paused, as a man selling pistols, after enlarging on the
advantages of each weapon, might await his customer’s choice. But Alexey
Alexandrovitch said nothing, and therefore the lawyer went on: “The most usual
and simple, the sensible course, I consider, is adultery by mutual consent. I
should not permit myself to express it so, speaking with a man of no
education,” he said, “but I imagine that to you this is comprehensible.”
Alexey
Alexandrovitch was, however, so perturbed that he did not immediately
comprehend all the good sense of adultery by mutual consent, and his eyes
expressed this uncertainty; but the lawyer promptly came to his assistance.
“People
cannot go on living together—here you have a fact. And if both are agreed about
it, the details and formalities become a matter of no importance. And at the
same time this is the simplest and most certain method.”
Alexey
Alexandrovitch fully understood now. But he had religious scruples, which
hindered the execution of such a plan.
“That is
out of the question in the present case,” he said. “Only one alternative is
possible: undesigned detection, supported by letters which I have.”
At the
mention of letters the lawyer pursed up his lips, and gave utterance to a thin
little compassionate and contemptuous sound.
“Kindly
consider,” he began, “cases of that kind are, as you are aware, under
ecclesiastical jurisdiction; the reverend fathers are fond of going into the
minutest details in cases of that kind,” he said with a smile, which betrayed
his sympathy with the reverend fathers’ taste. “Letters may, of course, be a
partial confirmation; but detection in the fact there must be of the most
direct kind, that is, by eyewitnesses. In fact, if you do me the honour to
entrust your confidence to me, you will do well to leave me the choice of the
measures to be employed. If one wants the result, one must admit the means.”
“If it is
so....” Alexey Alexandrovitch began, suddenly turning white; but at that moment
the lawyer rose and again went to the door to speak to the intruding clerk.
“Tell her
we don’t haggle over fees!” he said, and returned to Alexey Alexandrovitch.
To be continued
