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Vronsky heard with pleasure this light-hearted prattle of a

pretty woman, agreed with her, gave her half-joking counsel, and

altogether dropped at once into the tone habitual to him in

talking to such women. In his Petersburg world all people were

divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class,

vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe

that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has

lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest,

and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to

bring up one's children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts;

and various similar absurdities. This was the class of

old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class

of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and

in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay,

to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh

at everything else.