Under the Wing, read aloud

After dinner and brandy at Bartnyansky's, Oblonsky arrives at Lydia Ivanovna's, where the blinds are down and the lamp lit. Landau — pale, long-haired, with a moist motionless hand — is looking at the portraits; he is really Count Bezzubov by adoption, and heard a voice yesterday telling him to go to Paris. The Countess explains that Karenin's heart is changed and he has been given a new one, and that Oblonsky may not have grasped it. Oblonsky, calculating which Minister she could influence on his behalf, agrees with everything and is embarrassed to find it is a question of religion. Karenin says grace descends on the unprepared, as on Saul; Lydia Ivanovna says sin does not exist for a believer, having been atoned for, and breaks off twice to answer notes brought by the footman. Oblonsky offers faith without works from the catechism and is corrected. She fetches Safe and Happy, or, Under the Wing, mentions Mary Sanina who thanks God for her child's death, and begins to read in English, which Landau says he will understand with his eyes closed.

Tolstoy lets the doctrine state itself — sin does not exist for the believer, works are a false interpretation — and places it beside a woman dictating answers to social notes mid-sentence. Oblonsky's running calculation about Pomorsky keeps the scene from being merely satirical: everyone present wants something. Mary Sanina thanking God for her child's death is the chapter's measure of where this faith arrives.