Book 2 Chapter 16 An Up-To-Date Senator

From the Senate Nekhludoff drove to see an influential member of
the petition Committee, Baron Vorobioff, who lived in a splendid
house belonging to the Crown. The doorkeeper told Nekhludoff in a
severe tone that the Baron could not be seen except on his
reception days; that he was with His Majesty the Emperor to-day,
and the next day he would again have to deliver a report.
Nekhludoff left his uncle's letter with the doorkeeper and went
on to see the Senator Wolf. Wolf had just had his lunch, and was
as usual helping digestion by smoking a cigar and pacing up and
down the room, when Nekhludoff came in. Vladimir Vasilievitch
Wolf was certainly _un homme tres comme il faut_, and prized this
quality very highly, and from that elevation he looked down at
everybody else. He could not but esteem this quality of his very
highly, because it was thanks to it alone that he had made a
brilliant career, the very career he desired, i.e., by marriage
he obtained a fortune which brought him in 18,000 roubles a year,
and by his own exertions the post of a senator. He considered
himself not only _un homme tres comme il faut_, but also a man of
knightly honour. By honour he understood not accepting secret
bribes from private persons. But he did not consider it dishonest
to beg money for payment of fares and all sorts of travelling
expenses from the Crown, and to do anything the Government might
require of him in return. To ruin hundreds of innocent people, to
cause them to be imprisoned, to be exiled because of their love
for their people and the religion of their fathers, as he had
done in one of the governments of Poland when he was governor
there. He did not consider it dishonourable, but even thought it
a noble, manly and patriotic action. Nor did he consider it
dishonest to rob his wife and sister-in-law, as he had done, but
thought it a wise way of arranging his family life. His family
consisted of his commonplace wife, his sister-in-law, whose
fortune he had appropriated by selling her estate and putting the
money to his account, and his meek, frightened, plain daughter,
who lived a lonely, weary life, from which she had lately begun
to look for relaxation in evangelicism, attending meetings at
Aline's, and the Countess Katerina Ivanovna. Wolf's son, who had
grown a beard at the age of 15, and had at that age begun to
drink and lead a depraved life, which he continued to do till the
age of 20, when he was turned out by his father because he never
finished his studies, moved in a low set and made debts which
committed the father. The father had once paid a debt of 250
roubles for his son, then another of 600 roubles, but warned the
son that he did it for the last time, and that if the son did not
reform he would be turned out of the house and all further
intercourse between him and his family would he put a stop to.
The son did not reform, but made a debt of a thousand roubles,
and took the liberty of telling his father that life at home was
a torment anyhow. Then Wolf declared to his son that he might go
where he pleased--that he was no son of his any longer. Since
then Wolf pretended he had no son, and no one at home dared speak
to him about his son, and Vladimir Vasilievitch Wolf was firmly
convinced that he had arranged his family life in the best way.
Wolf stopped pacing up and down his study, and greeted Nekhludoff
with a friendly though slightly ironical smile. This was his way
of showing how comme il faut he was, and how superior to the
majority of men. He read the note which Nekhludoff handed to him.