His official duties? Official work here was not the stiff, hopeless drudgery that it was in Moscow. Heifer Apparently I have an attitude who knew shirt. 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. There was some interest in official work like that.

Heifer Apparently I have an attitude who knew shirt

The Petersburg attitude on pecuniary matters had an especially soothing effect on Stepan Arkadyevitch. Bartnyansky, who must spend at least fifty thousand to judge by the style he lived in, had made an interesting comment the day before on that subject. Heifer Apparently I have an attitude who knew shirt.  As they were talking before dinner, Stepan Arkadyevitch said to Bartnyansky: “You’re friendly, I fancy, with Mordvinsky; you might do me a favor: say a word to him, please, for me. There’s an appointment I should like to get–secretary of the agency…” “Oh, I shan’t remember all that, if you tell it to me…. But what possesses you to have to do with railways and Jews?… Take it as you will, it’s a low business.” Stepan Arkadyevitch did not say to Bartnyansky that it was a “growing thing”–Bartnyansky would not have understood that. “I want the money, I’ve nothing to live on.”

Nice shirt!

“You’re living, aren’t you?” “Yes, but in debt.” “Are you, though? Heavily?” said Bartnyansky sympathetically. “Very heavily: twenty thousand.” Bartnyansky broke into good-humored laughter. “Oh, lucky fellow!” said he. “My debts mount up to a million and a half, and I’ve nothing, and still I can live, as you see!” And Stepan Arkadyevitch saw the correctness of this view not in words only but in actual fact. Zhivahov owed three hundred thousand, and hadn’t a farthing to bless himself with, and he lived, and in style too! Count Krivtsov was considered a hopeless case by everyone, and yet he kept two mistresses.