He looked at the book and thought of something else.

He thought not of his wife, but of a complication that had arisen in his official life, which at the time constituted the chief interest of it.

He felt that he had penetrated more deeply than ever before into this intricate affair, and that he had originated a leading idea--he could say it without self-flattery--calculated to clear up the whole business, to strengthen him in his official career, to discomfit his enemies, and thereby to be of the greatest benefit to the government.

Directly the servant had set the tea and left the room, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up and went to the writing-table.

Moving into the middle of the table a portfolio of papers, with a scarcely perceptible smile of self-satisfaction, he took a pencil from a rack and plunged into the perusal of a complex report relating to the present complication.