Anna Karenina полностью

‘Don’t pay any attention,’ said Lydia Ivanovna, and with a light movement she pushed a chair towards Alexei Alexandrovich. ‘I’ve noticed ...’ she was beginning to say something when a footman came in with a letter. Lydia Ivanovna quickly scanned the note and, apologizing, wrote an extremely quick reply, handed it over and returned to the table. ‘I’ve noticed,’ she continued the conversation she had begun, ‘that Muscovites, the men especially, are quite indifferent to religion.’

‘Oh, no, Countess, I believe the Muscovites have a reputation for being quite staunch,’ Stepan Arkadyich replied.

‘But, as far as I understand, you, unfortunately, are among the indifferent,’ Alexei Alexandrovich said, turning to him with a weary smile.

‘How can one be indifferent!’ said Lydia Ivanovna.

‘In that respect, I’m not really indifferent, but expectant,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, with his most soothing smile. ‘I don’t think the time for these questions has come for me.’

Alexei Alexandrovich and Lydia Ivanovna exchanged glances.

‘We can never know whether the time has come for us or not,’ Alexei Alexandrovich said sternly. ‘We mustn’t think whether we’re ready or not: grace is not guided by human considerations; it sometimes descends not upon the labourers but upon the unprepared, as it did upon Saul.’²³ ‘No, not just yet, it seems,’ said Lydia Ivanovna, who had been following the Frenchman’s movements all the while.

Landau got up and came over to them.

‘Will you allow me to listen?’ he said.

‘Oh, yes, I didn’t want to disturb you,’ said Lydia Ivanovna, looking at him tenderly. ‘Sit down with us.’

‘One need only not close one’s eyes, so as not to be deprived of light,’ Alexei Alexandrovich went on.

‘Ah, if you knew the happiness we experience, feeling His constant presence in our souls!’ said Lydia Ivanovna, smiling beatifically.

‘But sometimes a man may feel himself unable to rise to that height,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, not forthrightly, acknowledging the loftiness of religion, but at the same time not daring to acknowledge his freethinking before the person who, by saying one word to Pomorsky, could provide him with the desired post.

‘That is, you mean to say that sin prevents him?’ said Lydia Ivanovna. ‘But that is a false view. There is no sin for believers; sin is already redeemed. Pardon,’ she added, looking at the footman, who came in again with another note. She read it and responded verbally: ‘Say tomorrow at the Grand Duchess’s. There is no sin for a believer,’ she continued the conversation.

‘Yes, but faith without works is dead,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, recalling this phrase from the catechism, defending his independence only with his smile.

‘There it is, from the Epistle of the Apostle James,’²⁴ said Alexei Alexandrovich, addressing Lydia Ivanovna somewhat reproachfully, evidently to do with something they had talked about more than once. ‘How much harm the wrong interpretation of that passage has done! Nothing so turns people from faith as this interpretation: “I have no works, I cannot believe,” when that is said nowhere. What is said is the opposite.’

‘To labour for God, to save your soul by works, by fasting,’ Countess Lydia Ivanovna said with squeamish contempt, ‘these are the wild notions of our monks ... Whereas that is said nowhere. It is much simpler and easier,’ she added, looking at Oblonsky with the same encouraging smile with which, at court, she encouraged young maids-of-honour bewildered by their new situation.

‘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.’