Page 624 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

of self-satisfaction, he took a pencil from a rack and
plunged into the perusal of a complex report relating to
the present complication. The complication was of this
nature: Alexey Alexandrovitch’s characteristic quality as a

politician, that special individual qualification that every
rising functionary possesses, the qualification that with his
unflagging ambition, his reserve, his honesty, and with his
self-confidence had made his career, was his contempt for
red tape, his cutting down of correspondence, his direct
contact, wherever possible, with the living fact, and his
economy. It happened that the famous Commission of the
2nd of June had set on foot an inquiry into the irrigation
of lands in the Zaraisky province, which fell under Alexey
Alexandrovitch’s department, and was a glaring example of
fruitless expenditure and paper reforms. Alexey
Alexandrovitch was aware of the truth of this. The
irrigation of these lands in the Zaraisky province had been
initiated by the predecessor of Alexey Alexandrovitch’s
predecessor. And vast sums of money had actually been
spent and were still being spent on this business, and
utterly unproductively, and the whole business could
obviously lead to nothing whatever. Alexey
Alexandrovitch had perceived this at once on entering
office, and would have liked to lay hands on the Board of

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