Stepan Arkadyevich, as usual, did not waste his time in Peterburg. In Peterburg, 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. .cheap prom dresses.
A wife?... Only that day he had been talking to Prince Chechensky. Prince Chechensky had a wife and family, grown-up children in the Corps of Pages.... And he had another illegitimate family of children also. Though the first family was very fine too, Prince Chechensky felt happier in his second family; and he used to take his eldest son with him to his second family, and told Stepan Arkadyevich that he thought it good for his son, enlarging his ideas. What would have been said to that in Moscow? .moncler jackets outlet.
Children?... In Peterburg 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. .bvlgari rings replica.
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 Briantsev, whom Stepan Arkadyevich 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. .Christian Louboutin Replica.
The Peterburg attitude on pecuniary matters had an especially soothing effect on Stepan Arkadyevich. Bartniansky, who must spend at least fifty thousand to judge by the style he lived in, had made a remarkable comment the day before on that subject. .cartier love bracelet replica.
As they were talking before dinner, Stepan Arkadyevich said to Bartniansky: .www.puravidag.com.
`You're friendly, I fancy, with Mordvinsky; you might do me a favor: say a word to him, please, for me. There's an appointment I should like to get - member of the agency...' .cheap nike roshe run.
`Oh, I shan't remember all that, if you tell it to me.... But what possesses you to have to do with railways and Yids?... Take it as you will, it's a low business.' .Christian Louboutin Replica.
Stepan Arkadyevich did not say to Bartniansky that it was a `growing thing' - Bartniansky would not have understood that. .hermes bracelet replica.
`I want the money - I've nothing to live on.' .cartier love bracelet replica.
`You're living, aren't you?' .Giuseppe Zanotti Replica.
`Yes, but in debt.' .cartier love bracelet replica.
`Are you, though? Heavily?' said Bartniansky sympathetically. .cartier love bracelet replica.
`Very heavily: twenty thousand.' .cartier love bracelet rings.
Bartniansky broke into good-humored laughter. .cartier love bracelet replica.
`Oh, lucky fellow!' said he. `My debts mount up to a million and a half, and I've nothing, and still I can live, as you see!'
And Stepan Arkadyevich saw the correctness of this view not in words only but in actual fact. Zhivakhov owed three hundred thousand, and hadn't a copper to bless himself with, and he lived, and in style too! Count Krivtsov was considered a hopeless case by everyone, and yet he kept two mistresses. Petrovsky had run through five millions, and still lived in just the same style, and was even a manager in the financial department with a salary of twenty thousand. But besides this, Peterburg had physically an agreeable effect on Stepan Arkadyevich. It made him younger. In Moscow he sometimes found a gray hair in his head, dropped asleep after dinner, stretched, walked slowly upstairs, breathing heavily, was bored by the society of young women, and did not dance at balls. In Peterburg he always felt ten years younger.
His experience in Peterburg was exactly what had been described to him on the previous day by Prince Piotr Oblonsky, a man of sixty, who had just come back from abroad:
`We don't know how to live here,' said Piotr Oblonsky. `I spent the summer in Baden, and you wouldn't believe it, I felt quite a young man. At a glimpse of a pretty woman, my thoughts... One dines and drinks a glass of wine, and feels strong and ready for anything. I came home to Russia - had to see my wife, and, what's more, go to my country place; and there, you'd hardly believe it, in a fortnight I'd got into a dressing gown and given up dressing for dinner. Needn't say I had no thoughts left for pretty women. I became quite an old gentleman. There was nothing left for me but to think of my eternal salvation. I went off to Paris - I was at once as right as could be.'
Stepan Arkadyevich felt exactly the difference that Piotr Oblonsky described. In Moscow he degenerated so much that if he had had to be there for long together, he might in good earnest have come to considering his salvation; in Peterburg he felt himself a man of the world again.
`Ah, so you're here!' said she when she saw him. `Well, and what news of your poor sister? You needn't look at me like that,' she added. `Ever since they've all turned against her, all those who're a thousand times worse than she, I've thought she did a very fine thing. I can't forgive Vronsky for not letting me know when she was in Peterburg. I'd have gone to see her and gone about with her everywhere. Please give her my love. Come, tell me about her.'
`Yes, her position is very difficult; she...' began Stepan Arkadyevich, in the simplicity of his heart accepting as sterling coin Princess Miaghkaia's words: `Tell me about her.' Princess Miaghkaia interrupted him immediately, as she always did, and began talking herself.
`She's done what they all do, except me - only the others hide it. But she wouldn't be deceitful, and she did a fine thing. And she did better still in throwing up that crazy brother-in-law of yours. You must excuse me. Everybody used to say he was so clever, so very clever; I was the only one that said he was a fool. Now that he's so thick with Lidia Ivanovna and Landau, they all say he's crazy, and I should prefer not to agree with everybody, but this time I can't help it.'
`Oh, do please explain,' said Stepan Arkadyevich; `what does it mean? Yesterday I was seeing him on my sister's behalf, and I asked him to give me a final answer. He gave me no answer, and said he would think it over. But this morning, instead of an answer, I received an invitation from Countess Lidia Ivanovna for this evening.'
`Ah, so that's it, that's it!' said Princess Miaghkaia gleefully, `they're going to ask Landau what he's to say.'
`Ask Landau? What for? Who or what's Landau?'
`What! you don't know Jules Landau, le fameux Jules Landau, le clairvoyant? He's crazy too, but on him your sister's fate depends. See what comes of living in the provinces - you know nothing about anything. Landau, do you see, was a commis in a shop in Paris, and he went to a doctor's; and in the doctor's waiting room he fell asleep, and in his sleep he began giving advice to all the patients. And wonderful advice it was! Then the wife of Iury Meledinsky - you know, the invalid? - heard of this Landau, and had him to see her husband. And he cures her husband, though I can't say that I see he did him much good, for he's just as feeble a creature as ever he was, but they believed in him, and took him along with them, and brought him to Russia. Here there's been a general rush to him, and he's begun doctoring everyone. He cured Countess Bezzubova, and she took such a fancy to him that she adopted him.'
`Adopted him?'
`Yes, as her son. He's not Landau any more now, but Count Bezzubov. That's neither here nor there, though; but Lidia - I'm very fond of her, but she has a screw loose somewhere - has lost her heart to this Landau now, and nothing is settled now in her house or Alexei Alexandrovich's without him, and so your sister's fate is now in the hands of Landau, alias Count Bezzubov.'
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? Leo Tolstoy
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