Kitty danced in the first pair; luck­ily for her she did not have to speak, since Kor­sun­sky kept run­ning back and forth man­ag­ing his domain. Vron­sky and Anna were sit­ting almost oppo­site her. She saw them with her far­sighted eyes and she saw them close by as well, when they met in the fig­ures; the more she saw them the more she was con­vinced that her hap­pi­ness was com­plete. She saw that in this crowded room they felt by them­selves. And on Vronsky’s face, which was always so res­olute and self-possessed, she saw that expres­sion of bewil­der­ment and sub­mis­sion which had star­tled her, an expres­sion like that of an intel­li­gent dog when it feels guilty.
AK Pg. 86–87

The next morn­ing Levin left Moscow and arrived home toward evening. In the train on the way he dis­cussed pol­i­tics and the new rail­roads with his neigh­bors, and just as in Moscow he was dis­tressed by his con­fu­sion of ideas, by a dis­sat­is­fac­tion with him­self, and by a vague sense of shame about some­thing or other. But when he got out at his sta­tion, and rec­og­nized his one-eyed coach­man Ignat, with his coat col­lar turned up, and when he saw his rug­cov­ered sleigh in the dim light from the sta­tion win­dow, and his horses with their plaited tails, and their har­ness with its rings and tas­sels, and when Ignat, while putting every­thing away told him the local news—how the con­trac­tor had come, and how Pava had had a calf—he felt his con­fu­sion clear­ing up a lit­tle, and his shame and dis­sat­is­fac­tion with him­self pass­ing away. He felt this at the mere sight of Ignat and the horses; but when he put on the sheep­skin coat that had been brought for him, and sat down well wrapped up in the sleigh and started off turn­ing over in his mind the instruc­tions to be given about the estate and watch­ing the side horse, a for­mer sad­dle horse from the Don, used up but still spir­ited, he began to under­stand what had been hap­pen­ing to him in a com­pletely dif­fer­ent way. He felt he was him­self again and had no desire to be any dif­fer­ent. Now he only wanted to be bet­ter than he had been before. First of all he decided that from that day on he would no longer set his hopes on the extra­or­di­nary hap­pi­ness that mar­riage was to have given him, and there­fore would not belit­tle the present so much. Sec­ondly, he would never per­mit him­self to be car­ried away by base pas­sion, the rec­ol­lec­tion of which had tor­mented him so when he had been mak­ing up his mind to pro­pose. Then, recall­ing his brother Nicholas, he deter­mined that he would never again allow him­self to for­get him, but would keep track of and watch out for him so as to be ready to help if he was hav­ing a hard time. That, he felt, was going to come soon. Then his brother’s talk about com­mu­nism, which he had treated so lightly at the time, now made him reflect. He thought a com­plete trans­for­ma­tion of eco­nomic con­di­tions was non­sense, but he had always felt the injus­tice of his own abun­dance in com­par­i­son with the mis­ery of the peo­ple, and now he deter­mined that in order to feel him­self com­pletely in the right, even though he had always worked hard and lived fru­gally, he would now work still harder and allow him­self even less lux­ury. And all this seemed to him so easy to carry out that he spent the whole trip in the most agree­able reverie. Toward nine o’clock in the evening he reached his house, with a robust feel­ing of hope for a new and bet­ter life.
AK P 97

“Well, to tell the truth, Anna, I’m not very anx­ious for Kitty to marry him. It’s much bet­ter for it to be bro­ken up, if Vron­sky is able to fall in love with you in one day.”
“Dear God, that would be so silly!” said Anna, and again a deep flush of plea­sure passed over her face at hear­ing the thought at the back of her mind expressed in words. “So, that’s why I’m leav­ing, after hav­ing made an enemy of Kitty, whome I became so attached to. What a dar­ling she is! But you’ll smooth things over, Dolly, won’t you?
Dolly could scarcely refrain from smil­ing. She loved Anna, but it was pleas­ant for her to see that she too had her weak­nesses.
“An enemy? That’s impos­si­ble!”
AK P 104

Still with the same pre­oc­cu­pa­tion she had had that whole day, Anna set­tled her­self in for the trip with sat­is­fac­tion and delib­er­a­tion; with her deft lit­tle hands she unlocked her red bag, took out a small pil­low which she placed on her knees, locked the bag again and care­fully wrap­ping up her feet set­tled down com­fort­ably. An invalid woman was already going to bed. Two other women started up a con­ver­sa­tion with her; the fat old one was wrap­ping up her feet and mak­ing remarks about the heat­ing. Anna said a few words in reply, but not expect­ing any amuse­ment from the con­ver­sa­tion asked Annushka to get her read­ing lamp; she fas­tened it to the arm of the seat and took a paper knife and an Eng­lish novel out of her hand­bag. For a while she couldn’t read. At first she was dis­turbed by the bustling and walk­ing about; then, when the train started, it was impos­si­ble not to lis­ten to the noises; then the snow, beat­ing on the left win­dow and stick­ing to it, the sight of the con­duc­tor pass­ing by, bun­dled up and cov­ered with snow on one side, and the con­ver­sa­tions about what a ter­ri­ble snow­storm was rag­ing out­side, all dis­tracted her atten­tion. Far­ther on it was just the same; the same jolt­ing and clat­ter, the same snow beat­ing on the win­dow, the same rapid changes from steam­ing heat to cold and back again to heat, the same faces gleam­ing in the semi­dark­ness, and the same voices; Anna began to read and to under­stand what she was read­ing. Annushka was already doz­ing, her broad hands, with one of the gloves torn, hold­ing the red bag on her lap. Anna under­stood what she was read­ing, but it was unpleas­ant for her to read, that is, to fol­low the reflec­tion of the lives of other peo­ple. She had too strong a desire to live her­self. If she was read­ing about the hero­ine of a novel tend­ing an invalid, she felt like walk­ing inaudi­bly about the invalid’s room; if she read about a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment mak­ing a speech, she felt like mak­ing the speech; if she read about Lady Mary rid­ing to hounds, teas­ing her sister-in-law and astound­ing every­one with her bold­ness, she felt like doing all that her­self. But there was noth­ing to be done, so she forced her­self to read, her lit­tle hands toy­ing with the smooth paper knife.Portrait Tol­stoy
AK Pg 104–105

Vron­sky did not even try to sleep that night. He sat in his arm­chair, some­times star­ing straight ahead of him, some­times look­ing round at the peo­ple going in and out, and if even before he had struck and upset peo­ple who didn’t know him by his look of unshak­able seren­ity, now he seemed even prouder and more self-sufficient. He looked at peo­ple as though they were objects. A ner­vous young man sit­ting oppo­site him, a clerk in the local courts, hated him for this stare. The young man kept ask­ing him for a light, started talk­ing to him, and even jos­tled him, in order to make him see that he was a man, not an object, but Vronksy kept look­ing at him just as he did at the lamp; the young man started gri­mac­ing, feel­ing his self-control dwin­dling away under the strain of this man who refused to acknowl­edge his exis­tence.
Vron­sky saw noth­ing and no one. He felt like a King, not because he believed he had made any impres­sion on Anna—he still didn’t believe that—but because the effect she had had on him made him happy and proud.
Pg 110

“She’s unique!” said the host­ess.
”Mar­velous!” said some­one else.
The effect pro­duced by what­ever Princes Myakgy said was always the same; its secret con­sisted of her say­ing sim­ple things that made sense, even when, as now, they were not quite to the point. In the soci­ety she lived in remarks like this had the effect of the wit­ti­est jokes. Princess Myagky didn’t under­stand why they had this effect, but she knew they did and exploited it.
Since every­one had been lis­ten­ing to Princess Myagky and the con­ver­sa­tion around the ambassador’s wife had come to a stop, the host­ess tried to unify the whole com­pany: she turned to the ambassador’s wife:
“Are you quite sure you don’t want any tea? You should come over and join us.”
“No, we’re really very com­fort­able here,” answered the ambassador’s wife smil­ingly, and wen on with the con­ver­sa­tion that had begun. Rooms in Tolstoy’s Manor
This con­ver­sa­tion was very agree­able. The Karenins, hus­band and wife, were being run down.
“Anna’s changed a great deal since her trip to Moscow. There’s some­thing odd about her,” said a woman who was a friend of hers.
“The prin­ci­pal change is that she’s brought the shadow of Alexis Vron­sky back with her,” said the ambassador’s wife.
“And why not? You know the Grimm fairy tale, ‘The Man with­out a shadow.’ It’s a pun­ish­ment for some­thing or other. I never could under­stand why it was a pun­ish­ment. But it must be unpleas­ant for a woman to be with­out a shadow.”
“Yes, but women with a shadow usu­ally end badly,” said Anna’s friend.
“Bad cess to your tongue,” Princess Myagky, hear­ing this remark, said sud­denly. &rlquo;Anna is a won­der­ful woman. I don’t like her hus­band, but I like her very much indeed.”
“But why don’t you like her hus­band? He’s such a remark­able man,” said the ambassador’s wife. “My hus­band says there are very few states­men like him in Europe.”
“My hus­band tells me the same thing, but I don’t believe it,” said Princess Myagky. “If our hus­bands didn’t tell us that we would see things as they are, and to my mind Karenin is sim­ply stu­pid. I say this only in a whisper…Doesn’t that clear every­thing up? Before, when I was ordered to con­sider him intel­li­gent, I kept on try­ing to and I con­sid­ered myself stu­pid for not see­ing how intel­li­gent he was; but the moment I said, ‘he’s stu­pid,’ but said it in a whis­per, every­thing became quite clear. Isn’t that so?”
“How mali­cious you are today!”
“Not in the least. I have no other way out. One of the two of us is stu­pid. Well, as you know, it’s never pos­si­ble to say that about your­self.”
“No one is sat­is­fied with his for­tune, but every­one is sat­is­fied with his wit,” said the attache, quot­ing some French verse. Sophia Tol­stoy
“That’s just it,” said Princess Myagky, turn­ing to him quickly. “But the point is I’m not going to let you have Anna. She’s so won­der­ful, so charm­ing! What can she do if every one falls in love with her and fol­lows her around like a shadow?”
“But I wasn’t think­ing of con­demn­ing her,” said Anna’s friend, to jus­tify her­self.
”If no one fol­lows us about like a shadow that doesn’t prove we have the right to con­demn any­one else.”
And hav­ing prop­erly dis­posed of Anna’s friend, Princess Myagky got up and together with the ambassador’s wife went over to the table where a gen­eral con­ver­sa­tion was going on about the King of Prus­sia.
AK Pg 142–143

He saw she was say­ing some­thing she had to force her­self to say, not what she wanted to.
“If you love me as you say,” she whis­pered, “allow me to be at peace.”
His face lit up. “Surely you know that for me you are all of life; but I don’t know how to give you peace and can­not do it. All of me, love—yes. I’m inca­pable of think­ing of you and of myself sep­a­rately. For myself you and I are one. And I can­not fore­see any pos­si­bil­ity of peace either for myself or for you. I see a pos­si­bil­ity of despair, of unhappiness—or I see a pos­si­bil­ity of hap­pi­ness, and of what hap­pi­ness! Surely that is pos­si­ble” he added with his lips alone, but she heard him.
She bent all the power of her mind to say what she ought to say; but instead of that she fixed her eyes on him, full of love, and said noth­ing.
At last! He thought, enrap­tured. Just when I was begin­ning to despair, when it seemed as though the end would never come—at last! She loves me! She admits!
“Then do this for me, never say such things to me, and let us be good friends,” she said, in words, though her eyes said some­thing quite dif­fer­ent.
Pg 146–147

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