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.