Anna Karenina - Part 7

Stepan Arkadyevitch, as usual, did not waste his time in

Petersburg. In Petersburg, besides business, his sister's

divorce, and his coveted appointment, he wanted, as he always

did, to freshen himself up, as he said, after the mustiness of

Moscow.

In spite of its _cafés chantants_ and its omnibuses, Moscow was

yet a stagnant bog. Stepan Arkadyevitch always felt it. After

living for some time in Moscow, especially in close relations

with his family, he was conscious of a depression of spirits.

After being a long time in Moscow without a change, he reached a

point when he positively began to be worrying himself over his

wife's ill-humor and reproaches, over his children's health and

education, and the petty details of his official work; even the

fact of being in debt worried him. But he had only to go and

stay a little while in Petersburg, in the circle there in which

he moved, where people lived--really lived--instead of vegetating

as in Moscow, and all such ideas vanished and melted away at

once, like wax before the fire. His wife?... Only that day he

had been talking to Prince Tchetchensky. Prince Tchetchensky had

a wife and family, grown-up pages in the corps,...and he had

another illegitimate family of children also. Though the first

family was very nice too, Prince Tchetchensky felt happier in his

second family; and he used to take his eldest son with him to

his second family, and told Stepan Arkadyevitch that he thought

it good for his son, enlarging his ideas. What would have been

said to that in Moscow?

His children? In Petersburg children did not prevent their

parents from enjoying life. The children were brought up in

schools, and there was no trace of the wild idea that prevailed

in Moscow, in Lvov's household, for instance, that all the

luxuries of life were for the children, while the parents have

nothing but work and anxiety. Here people understood that a man

is in duty bound to live for himself, as every man of culture

should live.

His official duties? Official work here was not the stiff,

hopeless drudgery that it was in Moscow. Here there was some

interest in official life. A chance meeting, a service rendered,

a happy phrase, a knack of facetious mimicry, and a man's career

might be made in a trice. So it had been with Bryantsev, whom

Stepan Arkadyevitch had met the previous day, and who was one of

the highest functionaries in government now. There was some

interest in official work like that.

The Petersburg attitude on pecuniary matters had an especially

soothing effect on Stepan Arkadyevitch. Bartnyansky, who must

spend at least fifty thousand to judge by the style he lived in,

had made an interesting comment the day before on that subject.