whole world.

Chapter 20

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 _cafes 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.