Alexey Alexandrovitch, on coming back from church service, had
spent the whole morning indoors. He had two pieces of business
before him that morning; first, to receive and send on a
deputation from the native tribes which was on its way to
Petersburg, and now at Moscow; secondly, to write the promised
letter to the lawyer. The deputation, though it had been
summoned at Alexey Alexandrovitch's instigation, was not without
its discomforting and even dangerous aspect, and he was glad he
had found it in Moscow. The members of this deputation had not
the slightest conception of their duty and the part they were to
play. They naïvely believed that it was their business to lay
before the commission their needs and the actual condition of
things, and to ask assistance of the government, and utterly
failed to grasp that some of their statements and requests
supported the contention of the enemy's side, and so spoiled the
whole business. Alexey Alexandrovitch was busily engaged with
them for a long while, drew up a program for them from which they
were not to depart, and on dismissing them wrote a letter to
Petersburg for the guidance of the deputation. He had his chief
support in this affair in the Countess Lidia Ivanovna. She was a
specialist in the matter of deputations, and no one knew better
than she how to manage them, and put them in the way they should
go. Having completed this task, Alexey Alexandrovitch wrote the
letter to the lawyer. Without the slightest hesitation he gave
him permission to act as he might judge best. In the letter he
enclosed three of Vronsky's notes to Anna, which were in the
portfolio he had taken away.