Although Nekhludoff arrived late, there was a long wait before him,
which was caused by the failure of one of the judges to appear.




CHAPTER VI.


The presiding justice arrived early. He was a tall, stout man, with
long, grayish side-whiskers. He was married, but, like his wife, led a
very dissolute life. They did not interfere with each other. On the
morning in question he received a note from a Swiss governess, who had
lived in his house during the summer, and was now passing on her way
from the South to St. Petersburg. She wrote that she would be in town
between three and six o'clock p.m., and wait for him at the "Hotel
Italia." He was, therefore, anxious to end his day's sitting before
six o'clock, that he might meet the red-haired Clara Vasilievna.

Entering his private chamber, and locking the door behind him, he
produced from the lower shelf of a book-case two dumb-bells, made
twenty motions upward, forward, sidewise and downward, and three times
lowered himself, holding the bells above his head.

"Nothing so refreshes one as a cold-water bath and exercise," he
thought, feeling with his left hand, on the fourth finger of which was
a gold ring, the biceps of his right arm. He had to go through two
more movements (these exercises he went through every day before court
opened), when the door rattled. Some one was attempting to open it.
The judge quickly replaced the dumb-bells and opened the door.