Anna Karenina — Chapter 238 in French
By Leo Tolstoy
En sortant de la chambre, quand il se retrouva seul, de nouveau Lévine se rappela la pensée qui, lui semblait-il, renfermait quelque chose de vague. Levin, on leaving the nursery and finding himself alone, began to follow out his line of thought, in which there had been something obscure.
Au lieu d’aller au salon, d’où arrivaient des voix, il s’arrêta sur la terrasse et, accoudé à la rampe, regarda le ciel. Instead of going back to the drawing-room, where he heard the sound of voices, he remained on the terrace, and, leaning over the balustrade of the terrace, he looked at the sky. Au midi, où il regardait, il faisait tout à fait sombre et il n’y avait pas de nuages. It had grown very dark, and there was not a cloud in the south where he was looking. Les nuages étaient tous du côté opposé. The clouds were all in the opposite quarter. Des éclairs brillaient et on entendait le grondement lointain du tonnerre. From time to time it would lighten, and the distant thunder would be heard. Lévine écoutait la chute des gouttes d’eau qui tombaient des tilleuls du jardin à intervalles réguliers et regardait le triangle d’étoiles qu’il connaissait, et la voie lactée, branchue, qui le traversait. Levin listened to the drops of rain falling rhythmically from the lindens, and looked at the stars and then at the Milky Way. À chaque éclair, non seulement la voie lactée, mais les étoiles, disparaissaient momentanément pour reparaître aux mêmes endroits, comme jetées par une main habile. Whenever the lightning flashed, then not only the Milky Way but also the bright stars would disappear from his vision; but by the time the thunder sounded they would reappear in their places as if a careful hand had readjusted them in the firmament.
« Eh bien, qu'est-ce donc qui me trouble ? » "Well, now what is it that troubles me?" » dit Lévine sentant d’avance que la solution encore inconnue de ce doute était prête dans son âme. Levin asked himself, already beginning to feel that a resolution of his doubts, though it had not yet become a matter of knowledge, was ready in his soul.
« Oui, la seule manifestation évidemment indiscutable de la divinité, réside dans les lois du bien, données au monde par la révélation, que je sens en moi, que je reconnais, m’unissant ainsi, bon gré, mal gré, aux autres hommes, dans cette société de croyants qu’on appelle l’Église. "Yes, there is one evident, indubitable manifestation of the Divinity, and that is the laws of right which are made known to the world through Revelation, and of which I am conscious as existing in myself, and in the recognition of them I am in spite of myself, willingly or unwillingly, united with other men into one brotherhood of believers, which is called the Church.