Page 662 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 19

In spite of Vronsky’s apparently frivolous life in society,
he was a man who hated irregularity. In early youth in the
Corps of Pages, he had experienced the humiliation of a
refusal, when he had tried, being in difficulties, to borrow
money, and since then he had never once put himself in
the same position again.
In order to keep his affairs in some sort of order, he
used about five times a year (more or less frequently,
according to circumstances) to shut himself up alone and
put all his affairs into definite shape. This he used to call
his day of reckoning or faire la lessive.
On waking up the day after the races, Vronsky put on a
white linen coat, and without shaving or taking his bath,
he distributed about the table moneys, bills, and letters,
and set to work. Petritsky, who knew he was ill-tempered
on such occasions, on waking up and seeing his comrade
at the writing-table, quietly dressed and went out without
getting in his way.
Every man who knows to the minutest details all the
complexity of the conditions surrounding him, cannot
help imagining that the complexity of these conditions,

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