Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [418]
‘Ah, you’re here, too,’ she said when she saw him. ‘Well, how is your poor sister? Don’t look at me like that,’ she added. ‘Though everybody’s fallen upon her, when they’re all a thousand times worse than she is, I find that she acted very beautifully. I can’t forgive Vronsky for not letting me know when she was in Petersburg. I’d have called on her and gone everywhere with her. Please send her my love. Well, tell me about her.’
‘Yes, her situation is difficult, she ...’ Stepan Arkadyich began, in the simplicity of his soul, taking her words at face value when Princess Miagky said, ‘Tell me about your sister.’ Princess Miagky interrupted him at once, as was her habit, and began talking herself.
‘She did no more than what everybody, except me, does but keeps hidden. She didn’t want to deceive and she did splendidly. And she did better still by abandoning that half-witted brother-in-law of yours. You must excuse me. Everybody kept saying he’s intelligent, he’s intelligent, and I alone said he was stupid. Now that he’s got himself associated with Lydia and Landau, everybody says he’s half-witted, and I’d be glad to disagree with them all, but this time I can’t.’
‘But explain to me, please,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, ‘what is the meaning of this? Yesterday I went to see him on my sister’s business and asked for a decisive answer. He gave me no answer and said he would think, and this morning, instead of an answer, I received an invitation to come to Countess Lydia Ivanovna’s this evening.’
‘Well, so there!’ Princess Miagky said joyfully. ‘They’re going to ask Landau what he says.’
‘Landau? Why? What is Landau?’
‘You mean you don’t know Jules Landau, le fameux Jules Landau, le clairvoyant? He’s half-witted, too, but your sister’s fate depends on him. That’s what happens when you live in the provinces: you don’t know anything. You see, Landau was a commisdi in a shop in Paris, and he went to the doctor. In the doctor’s office he fell asleep and in sleep started giving all the patients advice. Remarkable advice, too. Then Yuri Meledinsky’s wife - he’s ill, you know? - found out about this Landau and brought him to her husband. He’s been treating her husband. Hasn’t done him any good, in my opinion, because he’s still as paralysed as ever, but they believe in him and take him everywhere. And they brought him to Russia. Here everybody fell upon him and he started treating everybody. He cured Countess Bezzubov, and she likes him so much that she’s adopted him.’
‘Adopted him?’
‘Yes, adopted him. He’s no longer Landau, he’s Count Bezzubov. But that’s not the point, it’s that Lydia - I love her very much, but she’s off her head - naturally fell upon this Landau, and now neither she nor Alexei Alexandrovich can decide anything without him, and so your sister’s fate is now in the hands of this Landau, alias Count Bezzubov.’22
XXI
After an excellent dinner and a great quantity of cognac, drunk at Bartniansky‘s, Stepan Arkadyich, only a little later than the appointed time, entered Countess Lydia Ivanovna’s house.
‘Who else is with the countess? The Frenchman?’ Stepan Arkadyich asked the hall porter, looking at the familiar overcoat of Alexei Alexandrovich and a strange, naïve overcoat with clasps.
‘Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin and Count Bezzubov,’ the porter replied sternly.
‘Princess Miagky guessed right,’ thought Stepan Arkadyich, going up the stairs. ‘Strange! However, it would be nice to get friendly with her. She has enormous influence. If she’d put in a word for me with Pomorsky, it would be a sure thing.’
It was still broad