_"Mon ami,"_ said Lidia Ivanovna, carefully holding the folds of
her silk gown so as not to rustle, and in her excitement calling
Karenin not Alexey Alexandrovitch, but _"mon ami," "donnez-lui la
main. Vous voyez? Sh!"_ she hissed at the footman as he came in
again. "Not at home."

The Frenchman was asleep, or pretending to be asleep, with his
head on the back of his chair, and his moist hand, as it lay on
his knee, made faint movements, as though trying to catch
something. Alexey Alexandrovitch got up, tried to move
carefully, but stumbled against the table, went up and laid his
hand in the Frenchman's hand. Stepan Arkadyevitch got up too,
and opening his eyes wide, trying to wake himself up if he were
asleep, he looked first at one and then at the other. It was all
real. Stepan Arkadyevitch felt that his head was getting worse
and worse.

_"Que la personne qui est arrivee la derniere, celle qui demande,
qu'elle sorte! Qu'elle sorte!"_ articulated the Frenchman,
without opening his eyes.

_"Vous m'excuserez, mais vous voyez.... Revenez vers dix heures,
encore mieux demain."_ _"Qu'elle sorte!"_ repeated the Frenchman impatiently.

_"C'est moi, n'est-ce pas?"_ And receiving an answer in the
affirmative, Stepan Arkadyevitch, forgetting the favor he had
meant to ask of Lidia Ivanovna, and forgetting his sister's
affairs, caring for nothing, but filled with the sole desire to
get away as soon as possible, went out on tiptoe and ran out into
the street as though from a plague-stricken house. For a long
while he chatted and joked with his cab-driver, trying to recover
his spirits.