`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 Arkadyevich paused in confusion.
He understood at last that they were talking of religion.
`I fancy he will go into a trance immediately,' said Alexei Alexandrovich in a whisper full of meaning, going up to Lidia Ivanovna.
Stepan Arkadyevich 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 Alexei Alexandrovich. `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 than all others indifferent to religion.'
`Oh, no, Countess, I thought Moscow people had the reputation of being the firmest in the faith,' answered Stepan Arkadyevich.
`But as far as I can make out, you are unfortunately one of the indifferent ones,' said Alexei Alexandrovich, 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 Arkadyevich, with his most deprecating smile.
`I hardly think that the time for such questions has come yet for me.'
Alexei Alexandrovich and Lidia Ivanovna looked at each other.
`We can never tell whether the time has come for us or not,' said Alexei Alexandrovich sternly. `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 who strive for it, and comes to those who 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,'
Alexei Alexandrovich 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 inapt sometimes to rise to that height,'
said Stepan Arkadyevich, conscious of hypocrisy in admitting this religious height, but at the same time unable to bring himself to acknowledge his freethinking 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 Arkadyevich, recalling the phrase from the catechi**, and only by his smile clinging to his independence.
`There you have it - from the epistle of St. James,' said Alexei Alexandrovich, 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's not what is said, but the very opposite.'
`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 ******r and easier,'
she added, looking at Oblonsky with the same encouraging smile with which at Court she encouraged youthful maids of honor, disconcerted by the new surroundings of the Court.
`We are saved by Christ who suffered for us. We are saved by faith,'
Alexei Alexandrovich chimed in, with a glance of approval at her words.
` Vous comprenez l'anglais ?' asked Lidia Ivanovna, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, she got up and began looking through a shelf of books.
`I want to read him Safe and Happy, or Under the Wing ,'
she said, looking inquiringly at Karenin. And finding the book, and sitting down again in her place, she opened it. `It's very short. In it is described the way by which faith can be reached, and the happiness, above all earthly bliss, with which it fills the soul. The believer cannot be unhappy because he is not alone. But you will see.' She was just settling herself to read when the footman came in again. `Madame Borozdina? Tell her tomorrow, at two o'clock. Yes,' she said, marking the place in the book by inserting a finger, and gazing before her with her fine pensive eyes, `that is how true faith acts. You know Marie Sanina? You know about her trouble? She lost her only child. She was in despair. And what happened? She found this comforter, and she thanks God now for the death of her child. Such is the happiness faith brings!'
`Oh, yes, that is most...' said Stepan Arkadyevich, glad they were going to read, and let him have a chance to collect his faculties.
`No, I see I'd better not ask her about anything today,' he thought. `If only I can get out of this without putting my foot in it!'