Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/967

 For Moscow, in spite of its cafés-chantants, and its omnibuses, was still only a stagnant marsh. Stepan Arkadyevitch always felt that this was so. Living in Moscow, especially in proximity to his family, he was conscious that his spirit flagged. When his life in Moscow was long unbroken by a trip to Petersburg, he even began to be annoyed by his wife's bad temper and reproaches, and to worry over his health, the education of his children, and the petty details of the household. He even went so far as to be disturbed about his debts.

As soon as he set foot in Petersburg, and entered that circle where life was really life, and not vegetating, as in Moscow, immediately all such thoughts disappeared like wax in the fire.

His wife? .... He had just been talking with Prince Chetchensky. Prince Chetchensky had a wife and family,—grown-up boys, pages now; and he had another establishment, outside the law, and in this also there were children. But, though the first family was well enough in its way. Prince Chetchensky felt happier with his second family; and he had introduced his oldest legitimate son into his other family; he told Stepan Arkadyevitch he considered it a good way to train him and develop him. What would have been said about that in Moscow?

Children? In Petersburg, fathers did n't trouble themselves with their children. Children were educated in institutions, and there was no sign of that crazy notion in vogue in Moscow—Lvof shared in it—that children should have all the luxuries, and their parents nothing but care and trouble.

The government service? The service, too, was not that tiresome, hopeless treadmill that it was in Moscow. Here there was interest in the service. Meetings with men in authority, mutual services, opportune words spoken, the knowledge of how to take advantage of chances—and a man might suddenly find himself high in his career, like Brianzef, whom Stepan Arkadyevitch met that evening, and who was now a leading dignitary