AFTER a capital dinner and a great deal of cognac drunk at Bartnyansky’s, Stepan Arkadyevitch, only a little later than the appointed time, went into Countess Lidia Ivanovna’s.
“Who else is with the countess?—a Frenchman?” Stepan Arkadyevitch asked the hall-porter, as he glanced at the familiar overcoat of Alexey Alexandrovitch and a queer, rather artless-looking overcoat with clasps.
“Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenina and Count Bezzubov,” the porter answered severely.
“Princess Myaky guessed right,” thought Stepan Arkadyevitch, as he went up-stairs. “Curious! It would be quite as well, though, to get on friendly terms with her. She has immense influence. If she would say a word to Pomorsky, the thing would be a certainty.”
It was still quite light out-of-doors, but in Countess Lidia Ivanovna’s little drawing-room the blinds were drawn and the lamps lighted. At a round table under a lamp sat the countess and Alexey Alexandrovitch, talking softly. A short, thinnish man, very pale and handsome, with feminine hips and knock-kneed legs, with fine brilliant eyes and long hair lying on the collar of his coat, was standing at the other end of the room gazing at the portraits on the wall. After greeting the lady of the house and Alexey Alexandrovitch, Stepan Arkadyevitch could not resist glancing once more at the unknown man.
“Monsieur Landau!” the countess addressed him with a softness and caution that impressed Oblonsky. And she introduced them.
Landau looked round hurriedly, came up, and smiling, laid his moist, lifeless hand in Stepan Arkadyevitch’s outstretched hand and immediately walked away and fell to gazing at the portraits again. The countess and Alexey Alexandrovitch looked at each other significantly.
“I am very glad to see you, particularly to-day,” said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, pointing Stepan Arkadyevitch to a seat beside Karenina.
“I introduced you to him as Landau,” she said in a soft voice, glancing at the Frenchman, and again immediately after at Alexey Alexandrovitch, “but he is really Count Bezzubov, as you’re probably aware. Only he does not like the title.”
“Yes, I heard so,” answered Stepan Arkadyevitch; “they say he completely cured Countess Bezzubov.”
“She was here to-day, poor thing!” the countess said, turn-
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