`Oh, do please explain,' said Stepan Arkadyevich; `what does it mean? Yesterday I was seeing him on my sister's behalf, and I asked him to give me a final answer. He gave me no answer, and said he would think it over. But this morning, instead of an answer, I received an invitation from Countess Lidia Ivanovna for this evening.'

`Ah, so that's it, that's it!' said Princess Miaghkaia gleefully, `they're going to ask Landau what he's to say.'

`Ask Landau? What for? Who or what's Landau?'

`What! you don't know Jules Landau, le fameux Jules Landau, le clairvoyant? He's crazy too, but on him your sister's fate depends. See what comes of living in the provinces - you know nothing about anything. Landau, do you see, was a commis in a shop in Paris, and he went to a doctor's; and in the doctor's waiting room he fell asleep, and in his sleep he began giving advice to all the patients. And wonderful advice it was! Then the wife of Iury Meledinsky - you know, the invalid? - heard of this Landau, and had him to see her husband. And he cures her husband, though I can't say that I see he did him much good, for he's just as feeble a creature as ever he was, but they believed in him, and took him along with them, and brought him to Russia. Here there's been a general rush to him, and he's begun doctoring everyone. He cured Countess Bezzubova, and she took such a fancy to him that she adopted him.'

`Adopted him?'

`Yes, as her son. He's not Landau any more now, but Count Bezzubov. That's neither here nor there, though; but Lidia - I'm very fond of her, but she has a screw loose somewhere - has lost her heart to this Landau now, and nothing is settled now in her house or Alexei Alexandrovich's without him, and so your sister's fate is now in the hands of Landau, alias Count Bezzubov.'


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