Page 1584 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘We can never tell whether the time has come for us or
not,’ said Alexey Alexandrovitch severely. ‘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 that strive for it, and comes to those that 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,’ Alexey Alexandrovitch 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 unworthy sometimes to
rise to that height,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, conscious of
hypocrisy in admitting this religious height, but at the
same time unable to bring himself to acknowledge his
free-thinking views before a person who, by a single word
to Pomorsky, might procure him the coveted
appointment.

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