At each sec­tion of [Karenin’s] walk, for the most part on the par­quet of the lighted-up din­ing room, he would stop it, and express him­self: Yes, I must make a deci­sion and stop it, and express my opin­ion of it and my deci­sion. Then he would turn back again. But just what should I express? What deci­sion? He would say to him­self in the draw­ing room, and not find an answer. After all, he would ask him­self before turn­ing into his study, just what has hap­pened? Noth­ing. She talked to him a long time—well, what of it? Aren’t there a great many men in soci­ety a woman can talk to? Besides, being jeal­ous means degrad­ing both myself and her, he would say to him­self as he entered her sit­ting room; but this con­sid­er­a­tion, which had had such weight for him before now had no weight and meant noth­ing. At the bed­room door he would turn back again into the room, and the moment he had gone back into the dark draw­ing room some voice would say to him that that was not so, and that if oth­ers had noticed it, it meant that there was some­thing there. Then in the din­ing room he would say to him­self again: Yes, it’s nec­es­sary to make a deci­sion and stop it, and express my opinion…And once again he would ask him­self in the din­ing room before turn­ing back, But what deci­sion? Then he would ask him­self, But what hap­pened? He would answer, Noth­ing, and recall that jeal­ousy was a feel­ing that was an insult to one’s wife, but in the draw­ing room he would con­vince him­self again that some­thing had hap­pened after all. His thoughts as well as his body went round in a full cir­cle with­out encoun­ter­ing any­thing new. He noticed this, rubbed his fore­head, and sat down in her sit­ting room.
There, as he looked at her table with the mala­chite cover on the blot­ting paper and an unfin­ished note on the top of it, his thoughts sud­denly changed. He began to think about her—what she was think­ing and feel­ing. For the first time he vividly pic­tured to him­self her own per­sonal life, her thoughts, her desires, and the idea that she might and must have a life of her own seemed to him so ter­ri­fy­ing that he hastily drove it away. This was the abyss he was ter­ri­fied of look­ing into. To trans­fer him­self by thought and feel­ing into another being was a spir­i­tual activ­ity that was alien to Karenin. He regarded it as a harm­ful and dan­ger­ous abuse of fancy.
….Ques­tions about her feel­ings, about what has been tak­ing place or may take place in her soul—that’s none of my busi­ness, that’s the busi­ness of her con­science and con­cerns reli­gion, he said to him­self, with a feel­ing of relief at the aware­ness of hav­ing found a juridi­cal point on which he could duly hang the cir­cum­stance that had arisen.
Con­se­quently, Karenin said to him­self, ques­tions con­cern­ing her feel­ings and all that—are ques­tions for her con­science, which can­not be any of my busi­ness, while my own duties are clearly defined. As the head of a fam­ily, I am the per­son who is bound to guide her and there­fore is partly respon­si­ble; I must point out the dan­ger I see, warn her, and even make use of my author­ity. I must speak to her plainly.
AK Pg 150–151

She was look­ing at him so sim­ply, so cheer­fully, that no one who didn’t know her as he did would have been able to notice any­thing unnat­ural in either the sounds or the sense of what she said. But for him, who knew her, who knew that when he went to bed five min­utes late she would notice it and ask the rea­son, for him who knew that she would imme­di­ately tell him all her joys, plea­sures, and wor­ries instantly—for him to see now that she did not want to notice his state, did not want to say a word about her­self, meant a great deal. He saw that the depths of her soul, which had always been open to him before, were now closed. That was the least of it: by her tone he saw that she was not even embar­rassed at this, but seemed to be say­ing to him straight out: Yes, it is closed, and that’s how it ought to be and will be from now on. Now he had a feel­ing such as a man might have, on return­ing home and find­ing his own house locked up. But per­haps the key can still be found, Karenin thought.
AK, p 153

But mar­riage was far­ther away from [Levin] now than ever before. The place was taken; now, when in his imag­i­na­tion he would put some other girl he knew into it he felt it was com­pletely impos­si­ble. In addi­tion, the mem­ory of her refusal and of the role he had played in it tor­mented him with shame. No mat­ter how much he told him­self that he was not in the least to blame, the rec­ol­lec­tion of it, together with other shame­ful mem­o­ries, would make him start and blush. In his past, as in every man’s, there had been actions he knew were wrong, for which his con­scious should have tor­mented him; but the mem­ory of these bad actions of his did not tor­ment him nearly so much as these triv­ial, shame­ful mem­o­ries. Such wounds never close up. And among these rec­ol­lec­tions there now stood her refusal, and the pathetic fig­ure he must have cut in the eyes of the oth­ers that evening. But time and work had their effect. The painful mem­o­ries become more and more cov­ered up in his mind by the com­mon­place but impor­tant events of coun­try life. With each week that went by he thought about Kitty less and less often. He was impa­tiently wait­ing for the news that she had already been mar­ried or was about to be, hop­ing this news would com­pletely cure him, like the pulling of a tooth.
AK, P 159

Even just after Levin’s return from Moscow, when he still started and blushed every time he recalled the shame of hav­ing been refused, he said to him­self: I blushed and started in just the same way, and thought every­thing was over with, when I flunked physics and had to stay on in the sec­ond class; in just the same way I thought myself ruined when I bun­gled that busi­ness of my sister’s that was put in my charge. And what of it? Now that years have gone by when­ever I recall it I’m astounded that it could have upset me so. It’ll be the same with this trou­ble too; as time goes by I’ll be indif­fer­ent to the whole thing.
But three months had gone by and he had still not grown indif­fer­ent, and it was just as painful for him to think of it as it had been at first. He could not be at peace, because after hav­ing dreamed for so long about a fam­ily life, and hav­ing felt that he was ripe for it, nev­er­the­less he was still not mar­ried and was far­ther away from mar­riage than ever before. He him­self felt painfully just what every­one else around him felt too, that it was unwhole­some for a man of his age to live alone. He recalled how, just before leav­ing for Moscow, he had once said to his cat­tle­man Nicholas, a naïve peas­ant he liked to talk to: “ Well, Nicholas, I want to get mar­ried,” and how Nicholas had promptly answered, as though it were some­thing there could be no doubt about, “ and high time too, Mr. Con­stan­tine.”
But mar­riage was far­ther away from him now than ever before. The place was taken; now, when in his imag­i­na­tion he would put some other girl he knew into it he felt it was com­pletely impos­si­ble. In addi­tion, the mem­ory of her refusal and of the role he had played in it tor­mented him with shame. No mat­ter how much he told him­self that he was not in the least to blame, the rec­ol­lec­tion of it, together with other shame­ful mem­o­ries, would make him start and blush. In his past, as in every man’s, there had been actions he knew were wrong, for which his con­science should have tor­mented him; but the mem­ory of these bad actions of his did not tor­ment him nearly so much as these triv­ial, but shame­ful mem­o­ries. Such wounds never closed up. And among these rec­ol­lec­tions there now stood her refusal, and the pathetic fig­ure he must have cut in the eyes of the oth­ers that evening.
AK, P 158–159

Yasvin—a gam­bler and rake who was not only with­out prin­ci­ples, but whose prin­ci­ples were vicious—was Vronsky’s best friend in the reg­i­ment. Vron­sky was fond of him because of his unusual phys­i­cal strength, which he demon­strated prin­ci­pally by being able to drink life a fish and ever going to sleep with­out being affected by it in the least, because of his great strength of char­ac­ter, which he demon­strated in his rela­tions with his supe­ri­ors and com­rades, attract­ing their fear and respect, and also because of his card play­ing, when he would stake tens of thou­sands of rubles and invari­ably, in spite of all the wine he had drunk, play with such skill and dash that he was con­sid­ered the best player in the Eng­lish Club. Vron­sky respected and liked him espe­cially because he felt that Yashvin liked him not for his name and for­tune, but for him­self. And among all the men Vron­sky knew it was only he whom he would have liked to talk with about his love. He felt that in spite of Yashvin’s appar­ent con­tempt for all feel­ing he was the only one—the only one, it seemed to Vronsky—who was capa­ble of under­stand­ing the intense pas­sion that now filled his whole life. Aside from this he was cer­tain that Yashvin in any case would be sure to take no plea­sure in gos­sip and scan­dal, but would have a proper under­stand­ing of this feel­ing of his, that is, he would real­ize and believe that this love was not a joke, not a pas­time, but some­thing more seri­ous and impor­tant.
Vron­sky did not speak about his love to him, but he knew Yashvin knew every­thing, under­stood every­thing prop­erly, and it was pleas­ant for him to see all this in his eyes.
AK Pg 186—187

He was angry with all of them for inter­fer­ing just because he felt at heart that they—all of them–were right. He felt that the that bound him to Anna was not a momen­tary infat­u­a­tion which would pass away, as soci­ety love affairs pass away with­out leav­ing any trace in the life of either one or the other except agree­able or dis­agree­able mem­o­ries. He felt the full tor­ment of her posi­tion and his own, all the dif­fi­culty of hid­ing their love, exposed as they were to the eyes of the whole world, of lying and deceiv­ing; and of lying, deceiv­ing, schem­ing, and think­ing of oth­ers just when the pas­sion that bound them together was so pow­er­ful that both of them were obliv­i­ous of every­thing but their love.
AK P 194

But though she tried to look calm her lips were quiv­er­ing.
“For­give me for hav­ing come, but I couldn’t get through the day with­out see­ing you,” he con­tin­ued in French, which he always spoke to her in order to avoid say­ing the Russ­ian you, which was impos­si­bly cold, or the dan­ger­ously inti­mate Russ­ian thou.
AK P 197

Glad­i­a­tor and Diana were approach­ing it together and almost at the iden­ti­cal instant; simul­ta­ne­ously they rose above the brook and soared over it on to the other side; lightly, as though on wings, Frou-Frou soared up behind them but at just the same moment Vron­sky felt he was in the air he sud­denly saw, almost beneath the hoofs of his own horse, Kuzu­vloyov, floun­der­ing around with Diana on the other side of the brook (Kuzov­lyov had let go the reins after the jump, and the horse had sent him fly­ing over her head.) It was only later that Vron­sky learned these details; what he saw now was only that directly beneath Frou-Frou’s legs, just where she had to alight, Diana’s leg or head might turn up. But like a falling cat Frou-Frou exerted her legs and back dur­ing the jump and clear­ing the other horse hur­tled on.
AK P 208

Yashvin over­took him with his cap and led him home; half an hour later Vron­sky was him­self again. But for a long time the thought of this race remained in his heart as the bit­ter­est and most ago­niz­ing mem­ory of his life.
AK P 212

She said all these things gaily, quickly, and with a pecu­liar sparkle in her eyes; but Karenin no longer ascribed any mean­ing now to this tone of hers. All he heard was what she said, which he under­stood in its direct sense only. And he replied to her sim­ply, even though ban­ter­ingly. The whole con­ver­sa­tion was per­fectly com­mon­place, but after­ward Anna could never recall this whole brief scene with­out an ago­niz­ing twinge of shame.
AK P 217

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