" 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.

Petrovsky had run through five millions, and still lived in just the same style, and was even a manager in the financial department with a salary of twenty thousand.

But besides this, Petersburg had physically an agreeable effect on Stepan Arkadyevitch.