For the first two days after his wife's departure Alexey
Alexandrovitch received applicants for assistance and his chief
secretary, drove to the committee, and went down to dinner in the
dining room as usual. Without giving himself a reason for what
he was doing, he strained every nerve of his being for those two
days, simply to preserve an appearance of composure, and even of
indifference. Answering inquiries about the disposition of Anna
Arkadyevna's rooms and belongings, he had exercised immense
self-control to appear like a man in whose eyes what had occurred
was not unforeseen nor out of the ordinary course of events, and
he attained his aim: no one could have detected in him signs of
despair. But on the second day after her departure, when Korney
gave him a bill from a fashionable draper's shop, which Anna had
forgotten to pay, and announced that the clerk from the shop was
waiting, Alexey Alexandrovitch told him to show the clerk up.

"Excuse me, your excellency, for venturing to trouble you. But
if you direct us to apply to her excellency, would you graciously
oblige us with her address?"

Alexey Alexandrovitch pondered, as it seemed to the clerk, and
all at once, turning round, he sat down at the table. Letting
his head sink into his hands, he sat for a long while in that
position, several times attempted to speak and stopped short.
Korney, perceiving his master's emotion, asked the clerk to call
another time. Left alone, Alexey Alexandrovitch recognized that
he had not the strength to keep up the line of firmness and
composure any longer. He gave orders for the carriage that was
awaiting him to be taken back, and for no one to be admitted, and
he did not go down to dinner.