away
now, when I have no money? Supposing I could arrange.... But
how can I take her away while I'm in the service? If I say
that--I ought to be prepared to do it, that is, I ought to have
the money and to retire from the army."

And he grew thoughtful. The question whether to retire from the
service or not brought him to the other and perhaps the chief
though hidden interest of his life, of which none knew but he.

Ambition was the old dream of his youth and childhood, a dream
which he did not confess even to himself, though it was so
strong that now this passion was even doing battle with his love.
His first steps in the world and in the service had been
successful, but two years before he had made a great mistake.
Anxious to show his independence and to advance, he had refused a
post that had been offered him, hoping that this refusal would
heighten his value; but it turned out that he had been too bold,
and he was passed over. And having, whether he liked or not,
taken up for himself the position of an independent man, he
carried it off with great tact and good sense, behaving as though
he bore no grudge against anyone, did not regard himself as
injured in any way, and cared for nothing but to be left alone
since he was enjoying himself. In reality he had ceased to enjoy
himself as long ago as the year before, when he went away to
Moscow. He felt that this independent attitude of a man who
might have done anything, but cared to do nothing, was already
beginning to pall, that many people were beginning to fancy that
he was not really capable of anything but being a
straightforward, good-natured fellow. His connection with Madame
Karenina, by creating so much sensation and attracting general
attention, had given him a fresh distinction which soothed his
gnawing worm of ambition for a while, but a week before that worm
had been roused up again with fresh force. The friend of his
childhood, a man of the same set, of the same coterie, his
comrade in the Corps of Pages, Serpuhovskoy, who had left school
with him and had been his rival in class, in gymnastics, in their
scrapes and their dreams of glory, had come back a few days
before from Central Asia, where he had gained two steps up in
rank, and an order rarely bestowed upon generals so young.

As soon as he arrived in Petersburg, people began to talk about
him as a newly risen star of the first magnitude. A schoolfellow
of Vronsky's and of the same age,