Stephan Arkadyevitch had gone to Petersburg to perform the most
natural and essential official duty--so familiar to everyone in
the government service, though incomprehensible to outsiders--
that duty, but for which one could hardly be in government
service, of reminding the ministry of his existence--and having,
for the due performance of this rite, taken all the available
cash from home, was gaily and agreeably spending his days at the
races and in the summer villas. Meanwhile Dolly and the children
had moved into the country, to cut down expenses as much as
possible. She had gone to Ergushovo, the estate that had been
her dowry, and the one where in spring the forest had been sold.
It was nearly forty miles from Levin's Pokrovskoe. The big, old
house at Ergushovo had been pulled down long ago, and the old
prince had had the lodge done up and built on to. Twenty years
before, when Dolly was a child, the lodge had been roomy and
comfortable, though, like all lodges, it stood sideways to the
entrance avenue, and faced the south. But by now this lodge was
old and dilapidated. When Stepan Arkadyevitch had gone down in
the spring to sell the forest, Dolly had begged him to look over
the house and order what repairs might be needed. Stepan
Arkadyevitch, like all unfaithful husbands indeed, was very
solicitous for his wife's comfort, and he had himself looked over
the house, and given instructions about everything that he
considered necessary. What he considered necessary was to cover
all the furniture with cretonne, to put up curtains, to weed the
garden, to make a little bridge on the pond, and to plant
flowers. But he forgot many other essential matters, the want of
which greatly distressed Darya Alexandrovna later on.