Anna Karenina
her my love. Come, tell me about her.”
“Yes, her position is very difficult; she....” began Stepan
Arkadyevitch, in the simplicity of his heart accepting as sterling coin
Princess Myakaya’s words “tell me about her.” Princess Myakaya
interrupted him immediately, as she always did, and began talking
herself.
“She’s done what they all do, except me—only they hide it. But she
wouldn’t be deceitful, and she did a fine thing. And she did better
still in throwing up that crazy brother-in-law of yours. You must
excuse me. Everybody used to say he was so clever, so very clever; I
was the only one that said he was a fool. Now that he’s so thick with
Lidia Ivanovna and Landau, they all say he’s crazy, and I should prefer
not to agree with everybody, but this time I can’t help it.”
“Oh, do please explain,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch; “what does it mean?
Yesterday I was seeing him on my sister’s behalf, and I asked him to
give me a final answer. He gave me no answer, and said he would think
it over. But this morning, instead of an answer, I received an
invitation from Countess Lidia Ivanovna for this evening.”
“Ah, so that’s it, that’s it!” said Princess Myakaya gleefully,
“they’re going to ask Landau what he’s to say.”
“Ask Landau? What for? Who or what’s Landau?”
“What! you don’t know Jules Landau, _le fameux Jules Landau, le
clairvoyant_? He’s crazy too, but on him your sister’s fate depends.
See what comes of living in the provinces—you know nothing about
anything. Landau, do you see, was a _commis_ in a shop in Paris, and he
went to a doctor’s; and in the doctor’s waiting room he fell asleep,
and in his sleep he began giving advice to all the patients. And
wonderful advice it was! Then the wife of Yury Meledinsky—you know, the
invalid?—heard of this Landau, and had him to see her husband. And he
cured her husband, though I can’t say that I see he did him much good,
for he’s just as feeble a creature as ever he was, but they believed in
him, and took him along with them and brought him to Russia. Here
there’s been a general rush to him, and he’s begun doctoring everyone.
He cured Countess Bezzubova, and she took such a fancy to him that she
adopted him.”
“Adopted him?”
“Yes, as her son. He’s not Landau any more now, but Count Bezzubov.
That’s neither here nor there, though; but Lidia—I’m very fond of her,
but she has a screw loose somewhere—has lost her heart to this Landau
now, and nothing is settled now in her house or Alexey Alexandrovitch’s
without him, and so your sister’s fate is now in the hands of Landau,
_alias_ Count Bezzubov.”
Chapter 21
After a capital dinner and a great deal of cognac drunk at
Bartnyansky’s, Stepan Arkadyevitch, only a little later than the
appointed time, went in to Countess Lidia Ivanovna’s.
“Who else is with the countess?—a Frenchman?” Stepan Arkadyevitch asked
the hall-porter, as he glanced at the familiar overcoat of Alexey
Alexandrovitch and a queer, rather artless-looking overcoat with
clasps.
“Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenin and Count Bezzubov,” the porter answered
severely.
“Princess Myakaya guessed right,” thought Stepan Arkadyevitch, as he
went upstairs. “Curious! It would be quite as well, though, to get on
friendly terms with her. She has immense influence. If she would say a
word to Pomorsky, the thing would be a certainty.”
It was still quite light out-of-doors, but in Countess Lidia Ivanovna’s
little drawing-room the blinds were drawn and the lamps lighted. At a
round table under a lamp sat the countess and Alexey Alexandrovitch,
talking softly. A short, thinnish man, very pale and handsome, with
feminine hips and knock-kneed legs, with fine brilliant eyes and long
hair lying on the collar of his coat, was standing at the end of the
room gazing at the portraits on the wall. After greeting the lady of
the house and Alexey Alexandrovitch, Stepan Arkadyevitch could not
resist glancing once more at the unknown man.
“Monsieur Landau!” the countess addressed him with a softness and
caution that impressed Oblonsky. And she introduced them.
Landau looked round hurriedly, came up, and smiling, laid his moist,
lifeless hand in Stepan Arkadyevitch’s outstretched hand and
immediately walked away and fell to gazing at the portraits again. The
countess and Alexey Alexandrovitch looked at each other significantly.
“I am very glad to see you, particularly today,” said Countess Lidia
Ivanovna, pointing Stepan Arkadyevitch to a seat beside Karenin.
“I introduced you to him as Landau,” she said in a soft voice, glancing
at the Frenchman and again immediately after at Alexey Alexandrovitch,
“but he is really Count Bezzubov, as you’re probably aware. Only he
does not like the title.”
“Yes, I heard so,” answered Stepan Arkadyevitch; “they say he
completely cured Countess Bezzubova.”
“She was here today, poor thing!” the countess said, turning to Alexey
Alexandrovitch. “This separation is awful for her. It’s such a blow to
her!”
“And he positively is going?” queried Alexey Alexandrovitch.
“Yes, he’s going to Paris. He heard a voice yesterday,” said Countess
Lidia Ivanovna, looking at Stepan Arkadyevitch.
“Ah, a voice!” repeated Oblonsky, feeling that he must be as
circumspect as he possibly could in this society, where something
peculiar was going on, or was to go on, to which he had not the key.
A moment’s silence followed, after which Countess Lidia Ivanovna, as
though approaching the main topic of conversation, said with a fine
smile to Oblonsky:
“I’ve known you for a long while, and am very glad to make a closer
acquaintance with you. _Les amis de nos amis sont nos amis._ But to be
a true friend, one must enter into the spiritual state of one’s friend,
and I fear that you are not doing so in the case of Alexey
Alexandrovitch. You understand what I mean?” she said, lifting her fine
pensive eyes.
“In part, countess, I understand the position of Alexey
Alexandrovitch....” said Oblonsky. Having no clear idea what they were
talking about, he wanted to confine himself to generalities.
“The change is not in his external position,” Countess Lidia Ivanovna
said sternly, following with eyes of love the figure of Alexey
Alexandrovitch as he got up and crossed over to Landau; “his heart is
changed, a new heart has been vouchsafed him, and I fear you don’t
fully apprehend the change that has taken place in him.”
“Oh, well, in general outlines I can conceive the change. We have
always been friendly, and now....” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, responding
with a sympathetic glance to the expression of the countess, and
mentally balancing the question with which of the two ministers she was
most intimate, so as to know about which to ask her to speak for him.
“The change that has taken place in him cannot lessen his love for his
neighbors; on the contrary, that change can only intensify love in his
heart. But I am afraid you do not understand me. Won’t you have some
tea?” she said, with her eyes indicating the footman, who was handing
round tea on a tray.
“Not quite, countess. Of course, his misfortune....”
“Yes, a misfortune which has proved the highest happiness, when his
heart was made new, was filled full of it,” she said, gazing with eyes
full of love at Stepan Arkadyevitch.
“I do believe I might ask her to speak to both of them,” thought Stepan
Arkadyevitch.
“Oh, of course, countess,” he said; “but I imagine such changes are a
matter so private that no one, even the most intimate friend, would
care to speak of them.”
“On the contrary! We ought to speak freely and help one another.”
“Yes, undoubtedly so, but there is such a difference of convictions,
and besides....” said Oblonsky with a soft smile.
“There can be no difference where it is a question of holy truth.”
“Oh, no, of course; but....” and Stepan Arkadyevitch paused in
confusion. He understood at last that they were talking of religion.
“I fancy he will fall asleep immediately,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch
in a whisper full of meaning, going up to Lidia Ivanovna.
Stepan Arkadyevitch looked round. Landau was sitting at the window,
leaning on his elbow and the back of his chair, his head drooping.
Noticing that all eyes were turned on him he raised his head and smiled
a smile of childlike artlessness.
“Don’t take any notice,” said Lidia Ivanovna, and she lightly moved a
chair up for Alexey Alexandrovitch. “I have observed....” she was
beginning, when a footman came into the room with a letter. Lidia
Ivanovna rapidly ran her eyes over the note, and excusing herself,
wrote an answer with extraordinary rapidity, handed it to the man, and
came back to the table. “I have observed,” she went on, “that Moscow
people, especially the men, are more indifferent to religion than
anyone.”
“Oh, no, countess, I thought Moscow people had the reputation of being
the firmest in the faith,” answered Stepan Arkadyevitch.
“But as far as I can make out, you are unfortunately one of the
indifferent ones,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, turning to him with a
weary smile.
“How anyone can be indifferent!” said Lidia Ivanovna.
“I am not so much indifferent on that subject as I am waiting in
suspense,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, with his most deprecating smile.
“I hardly think that the time for such questions has come yet for me.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch and Lidia Ivanovna looked at each other.
“We can never tell whether the time has come for us or not,” said
Alexey Alexandrovitch severely. “We ought not to think whether we are
ready or not ready. God’s grace is not guided by human considerations:
sometimes it comes not to those that strive for it, and comes to those
that are unprepared, like Saul.”
“No, I believe it won’t be just yet,” said Lidia Ivanovna, who had been
meanwhile watching the movements of the Frenchman. Landau got up and
came to them.
“Do you allow me to listen?” he asked.
“Oh, yes; I did not want to disturb you,” said Lidia Ivanovna, gazing
tenderly at him; “sit here with us.”
“One has only not to close one’s eyes to shut out the light,” Alexey
Alexandrovitch went on.
“Ah, if you knew the happiness we know, feeling His presence ever in
our hearts!” said Countess Lidia Ivanovna with a rapturous smile.
“But a man may feel himself unworthy sometimes to rise to that height,”
said Stepan Arkadyevitch, conscious of hypocrisy in admitting this
religious height, but at the same time unable to bring himself to
acknowledge his free-thinking views before a person who, by a single
word to Pomorsky, might procure him the coveted appointment.
“That is, you mean that sin keeps him back?” said Lidia Ivanovna. “But
that is a false idea. There is no sin for believers, their sin has been
atoned for. _Pardon,_” she added, looking at the footman, who came in
again with another letter. She read it and gave a verbal answer:
“Tomorrow at the Grand Duchess’s, say.” “For the believer sin is not,”
she went on.
“Yes, but faith without works is dead,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
recalling the phrase from the catechism, and only by his smile clinging
to his independence.
“There you have it—from the epistle of St. James,” said Alexey
Alexandrovitch, addressing Lidia Ivanovna, with a certain
reproachfulness in his tone. It was unmistakably a subject they had
discussed more than once before. “What harm has been done by the false
interpretation of that passage! Nothing holds men back from belief like
that misinterpretation. ‘I have not works, so I cannot believe,’ though
all the while that is not said. But the very opposite is said.”
“Striving for God, saving the soul by fasting,” said Countess Lidia
Ivanovna, with disgusted contempt, “those are the crude ideas of our
monks.... Yet that is nowhere said. It is far simpler and easier,” she