“That’s what comes of a modern education,” exclaimed the visitor. “It seems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do as he liked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible things that he has been expelled by the police.”

“You don’t say so!” replied the countess.

“He chose his friends badly,” interposed Anna Mikháylovna. “Prince Vasíli’s son, he, and a certain Dólokhov have, it is said, been up to heaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it. Dólokhov has been degraded to the ranks and Bezúkhov’s son sent back to Moscow. Anatole Kurágin’s father managed somehow to get his son’s affair hushed up, but even he was ordered out of Petersburg.”

“But what have they been up to?” asked the countess.