Vronsky's Finances

[Jules Levin]

At 08:23 AM 2/19/2006, you wrote:
> >Perhaps someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I assume the reason for
> >Vronskii's hierarchy of repayment is that a gambling debt is a debt of
> >honour,
>
>Indeed, even though it was not even his own debt.
>
>That passage resonated in me when I reread Anna Karenina recently (well,
>7-8 years ago): Vronsky saw nothing dishonorable in not paying the tailor
>for his work.

According to a historian of 19th C. Russian Jewry with whom I 
corresponded regarding
my family history, the "gentlemanly" class favored Jewish over 
Russian tailors because the
Jews DID give credit!  Anyway, enough of them paid my 
greatgrandfather for his work so that
he could travel to America with his family in first class 
accommodations.   Many of the suppliers
of goods and services to the Imperial Guards in Tsarskoe Selo were 
named Gutmann, as was
my greatgrandmother.  My grandmother attended a Jewish girls' school 
in Tsarskoe Selo, where
inter alia she studied French.  She only learned Yiddish after the 
family came to Chicago in 1891.
If the tailors were routinely stiffed by their customers, I suppose 
they made up the loss in their prices,
as a cost of doing business.  Anyway, it was better than selling 
vodka to Cossacks in some village
tavern in the Pale of Settlement.
Jules Levin

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