Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/970

 "Well! her position is a very painful one; she...." Stepan Arkadyevitch began, in the simplicity of his heart, taking the princess's words as genuine money, when she said, "Tell me about your sister." But the princess, in her usual way, interrupted him, and began to talk herself. "She did what everybody but myself does and hides. But she was not willing to lie, and she did right; and she has at least bettered herself in having forsaken that imbecile,—I beg your pardon,—your brother-in-law. Everybody said he was a genius. A genius! I was the only one who said he was a goose; and people have come to be of my opinion, now that he has taken up with the Countess Lidia and Landau. I should like not to agree with everybody .... it's stupid; but this time I can't help it."

"Now please explain something to me," said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "What does this mean? Yesterday I was at his house, talking of the divorce, and I asked him for a definite answer; my brother-in-law said to me that he could not give me an answer without reflection; and this morning I received an invitation from Lidia Ivanovna for this evening instead of an answer."

"Now! That's just it!" cried the princess, delighted. "They will consult Landau as to what to say."

"Why Landau? who is Landau?"

"What! you don't know Jules Landau.... le fameux Jules Landau, le clairvoyant? He also in my opinion is an imbecile, but on him depends your sister's fate. That's what comes of living in the provinces. Landau, you must know, was commis of a mercantile house at Paris, and went to see a doctor. He fell asleep in the waiting-room, and, while he was asleep, gave advice to all the sick .... most astonishing advice. Then Yuri Melyedinsky's wife—you know he was sick—called him to see her husband. He treated her husband. In my opinion, he did n't do him any good, for Melyedinsky is just as sick as he was before; but his wife and he believe in Landau. They took him into their house, and they brought him to Russia. Naturally, people here have thrown themselves at him. He treats every-