At Petersburg he experienced what the sixty-year-old Prince Piotr Oblonsky, who had just returned from abroad, told him one evening:—
"We don't know how to live here," said Piotr Oblonsky. "For example, I spent the summer at Baden, and now, honestly, I feel like a new man. I see a young woman, and.... I enjoy my dinner, I can take my wine; I'm well and vigorous. When I come back to Russia, I have to see my wife, have even to go into the country. You wouldn't believe it, but in a couple of weeks I am in my dressing-gown. Good-by to the young beauties. I am old, think only of the salvation of my soul. To make me over, I go to Paris."
Stepan Arkadyevitch felt the same difference as Piotr Oblonsky did. In Moscow he reached such a low ebb of vitality that he felt sure that, if he ever attained the same age, he too should be driven to thinking about the salvation of his soul; in Petersburg he was conscious of being a well-regulated man.
Between the Princess Betsy Tversky and Stepan Arkadyevitch there had been for a long time a very strange relationship. He always jested with her, and he always said very improper things by way of jest, knowing that they pleased her more than anything else. The day after his interview with Karenin, Stepan Arkadyevitch went to see her; and, feeling particularly young, he conducted himself with more than his usual levity; and went so far in his impropriety that he could not retrieve his steps, and, unfortunately, he felt that she was not only displeased, but was even opposed to him. Yet this tone had been established because it generally amused her. So he was glad to have the Princess Miagkaya interrupt their tête-à-tête.
"Ah, here you are!" said she, when she saw him. "Well! and how is your poor sister? Do not look at me so. Since women who are a thousand times worse than she throw stones at her, I think she did quite right. I can't forgive Vronsky for not letting me know that she was in Petersburg. I should have gone to see her, and gone with her everywhere. Give her my love. Now tell me about her."
