He still filled a position of consequence, he sat on many commissions and committees, but he was a man whose day was over, and from whom nothing was expected.

Whatever he said, whatever he proposed, was heard as though it were something long familiar, and the very thing that was not needed.

But Alexey Alexandrovitch was not aware of this, and, on the contrary, being cut off from direct participation in governmental activity, he saw more clearly than ever the errors and defects in the action of others, and thought it his duty to point out means for their correction.

Shortly after his separation from his wife, he began writing his first note on the new judicial procedure, the first of the endless series of notes he was destined to write in the future.

Alexey Alexandrovitch did not merely fail to observe his hopeless position in the official world, he was not merely free from anxiety on this head, he was positively more satisfied than ever with his own activity.