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.