Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [421]
‘We are saved by Christ, who suffered for us. We are saved by faith,’ Alexei Alexandrovich confirmed, approving of her words with his eyes.
‘Vous comprenez l’anglais?’dk Lydia Ivanovna asked and, receiving an affirmative answer, stood up and began looking through the books on the shelf.
‘I want to read Safe and Happy, or Under the Wing?’25 she said, with a questioning look at Karenin. And, having found the book and sat down again, she opened it. ‘It’s very short. It describes the way in which faith is acquired and the happiness beyond all earthly things which then fills the soul. A believer cannot be unhappy, because he is not alone. You’ll see now.’ She was about to read when the footman came in again. ‘Mme Borozdin? Say tomorrow at two o‘clock. Yes,’ she said, holding the place in the book with her finger, sighing and gazing before her with her beautiful, pensive eyes. ‘That is the effect of true faith. Do you know Marie Sanin? Do you know about her misfortune? She lost her only child. She was in despair. Well, and what then? She found this Friend, and now she thanks God for the death of her child. That is the happiness that faith gives!’
‘Ah, yes, that’s very ...’ said Stepan Arkadyich, pleased that she was going to read and give him time to recover a little. ‘No,’ he thought, ‘looks as if it would be better not to ask for anything this time. So long as I can get out of here without messing things up.’
‘It will be boring for you,’ said Countess Lydia Ivanovna, turning to Landau, ‘you don’t know English. But it’s short.’
‘Oh, I shall understand,’ Landau said with the same smile and closed his eyes.
Alexei Alexandrovich and Lydia Ivanovna exchanged meaningful glances, and the reading began.
XXII
Stepan Arkadyich felt completely baffled hearing this talk, which was new and strange to him. The complexity of Petersburg life generally had an exhilarating effect on him, lifting him out of his Moscow stagnation; but he liked and understood those complexities in spheres that were close and familiar to him, while in this alien milieu he was baffled, dumbfounded, and could not grasp it all. Listening to Countess Lydia Ivanovna and sensing Landau’s beautiful eyes - naive or sly, he did not know which - fixed on him, Stepan Arkadyich began to feel some peculiar heaviness in his head.
The most diverse thoughts were tangled in his head. ‘Marie Sanin is glad her child died ... Would be nice to smoke now ... To be saved, one need only believe, and the monks don’t know how to do it, but Countess Lydia Ivanovna does ... And why is there such a heaviness in my head? From the cognac, or because it’s all so strange? Anyhow, I don’t think I’ve done anything improper yet. But, still, it’s impossible to ask for her help now. I’ve heard they make people pray. What if they make me pray? That would be too stupid. And what’s this nonsense she’s reading, albeit with good enunciation? Landau is Bezzubov. Why is he Bezzubov?’ Suddenly Stepan Arkadyich felt his lower jaw beginning to contract irrepressibly before a yawn. He smoothed his side-whiskers, concealing the yawn, and shook himself. But next he felt he was already asleep and about to snore. He woke up just as the voice of Countess Lydia Ivanovna said, ‘He’s asleep.’
Stepan Arkadyich woke up in fear, feeling guilty and exposed. But he was reassured at once, seeing that the words ‘He’s asleep’ referred not to him but to Landau. The Frenchman had fallen asleep as had Stepan Arkadyich. But while Stepan Arkadyich’s sleep, as he thought, would have offended them (however, he did not think even that, so strange everything seemed to him), Landau’s sleep delighted them in the extreme, Countess Lydia Ivanovna especially.
‘Mon ami,’ said Lydia Ivanovna, carefully picking up the folds of her silk dress so as not to rustle, and in her excitement calling Karenin ‘mon ami’ now instead of Alexei Alexandrovich, ‘donnez-lui la main. Vous voyez?dl Shh!’ she shushed the footman, who came in again. ‘Receive no one.’
The Frenchman slept, or pretended to sleep, his head resting on the