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and clever, learned, and a to the set had called it "the conscience of Petersburg

society" Alexey Alexandrovitch had the highest esteeetting on with

everyone, had in the early days of her life in Petersburg made

friends in this circle also Now, since her return from Moscow,

she had come to feel this set insufferable It seemed to her

that both she and all of them were insincere, and she felt so

bored and ill at ease in that world that she went to see the

Countess Lidia Ivanovna as little as possible

The third circle hich Anna had ties was preeminently the

fashionable world--the world of balls, of dinners, of su on to the court with one hand, so as

to avoid sinking to the level of the demi-monde For the

demi-monde the members of that fashionable world believed that

they despised, though their tastes were not merely similar, but

in fact identical Her connection with this circle was kept up

through Princess Betsy Tverskaya, her cousin's wife, who had an

income of a hundred and twenty thousand roubles, and who had

taken a great fancy to Anna ever since she first came out, showed

herfun of

Countess Lidia Ivanovna's coterie