‘Here we don’t know how to live,’ Pyotr Oblonsky had said. ‘Would you believe, I spent the summer in Baden. Well, really, I felt myself quite a young man. I’d see a young woman, and thoughts ... You dine, drink a little - strength, vigour. I came to Russia - had to see my wife, and also the estate - well, you wouldn’t believe it, two weeks later I got into my dressing gown, stopped changing for dinner. No more thinking about young lovelies! Turned into a real old man. Only thing left was saving my soul. Went to Paris - rallied again.’
Stepan Arkadyich felt exactly the same difference as Pyotr Oblonsky. In Moscow he went so much to seed that, in fact, if he lived there long enough, he would, for all he knew, reach the point of saving his soul; in Petersburg he felt himself a decent human being again.
Between Princess Betsy Tverskoy and Stepan Arkadyich there existed long-standing and quite strange relations. Stepan Arkadyich had always jokingly paid court to her and told her, also jokingly, the most indecent things, knowing that that was what she liked most. The day after his talk with Karenin, Stepan Arkadyich, calling on her, felt so young that he inadvertently went too far in this jocular courtship and bantering, and did not know how to get out of it, for, unfortunately, he not only did not like her but found her repulsive. They fell into this tone because she liked him very much. So that he was very glad of the arrival of Princess Miagky, which put a timely end to their tête-à-tête.
‘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,
‘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.
