Alexey Alexandrovitch’s departure made a great sensation, the more so as just before he started he officially returned the posting-fares allowed him for twelve horses, to drive to his destination.

“I think it very noble,” Betsy said about this to the Princess Myakaya.  “Why take money for posting-horses when everyone knows that there are railways everywhere now?”

But Princess Myakaya did not agree, and the Princess Tverskaya’s opinion annoyed her indeed.

“It’s all very well for you to talk,” said she, “when you have I don’t know how many millions; but I am very glad when my husband goes on a revising tour in the summer.  It’s very good for him and pleasant traveling about, and it’s a settled arrangement for me to keep a carriage and coachman on the money.”

On his way to the remote provinces Alexey Alexandrovitch stopped for three days at Moscow.

The day after his arrival he was driving back from calling on the governor-general.  At the crossroads by Gazetoy Place, where there are always crowds of carriages and sledges, Alexey Alexandrovitch suddenly heard his name called out in such a loud and cheerful voice that he could not help looking round.  At the corner of the pavement, in a short, stylish overcoat and a low-crowned fashionable hat, jauntily askew, with a smile that showed a gleam of white teeth and red lips, stood Stepan Arkadyevitch, radiant, young, and beaming.  He called him vigorously and urgently, and insisted on his stopping.  He had one arm on the window of a carriage that was stopping at the corner, and out of the window were thrust the heads of a lady in a velvet hat, and two children.  Stepan Arkadyevitch was smiling and beckoning to his brother-in-law.  The lady smiled a kindly smile too, and she too waved her hand to Alexey Alexandrovitch.  It was Dolly with her children.

Alexey Alexandrovitch did not want to see anyone in Moscow, and least of all his wife’s brother.  He raised his hat and would have driven on, but Stepan Arkadyevitch told his coachman to stop, and ran across the snow to him.

“Well, what a shame not to have let us know!  Been here long?  I was at Dussot’s yesterday and saw ‘Karenin’ on the visitors’ list, but it never entered my head that it was you,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, sticking his head in at the window of the carriage, “or I should have looked you up.  I am glad to see you!” he said, knocking one foot against the other to shake the snow off.  “What a shame of you not to let us know!” he repeated.

“I had no time; I am very busy,” Alexey Alexandrovitch responded dryly.

“Come to my wife, she does so want to see you.”

Alexey Alexandrovitch unfolded the rug in which his frozen feet were wrapped, and getting out of his carriage made his way over the snow to Darya Alexandrovna.

“Why, Alexey Alexandrovitch, what are you cutting us like this for?” said Dolly, smiling.