Summary Despite their changed relationship, Karenin maintains appearances, visiting Anna each week at their summer villa. When they talk, she chats lightly and rapidly, while Karenin, no longer observing the deceit in her entire attitude, responds only to the literal meaning of her words. His hostility, however, expresses itself by […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 2: Chapters 26-29Summary and Analysis Part 2: Chapters 18-25
Summary While Vronsky’s life runs its normal course with its social and military obligations, his passion absorbs his entire inner life. “Society” has various reactions. The younger men envy him; his brother, who enjoys his own extramarital affairs, disapproves because “those whom it was necessary to please” disapprove. His mother […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 2: Chapters 18-25Summary and Analysis Part 2: Chapters 12-17
Summary In the early days of his return to the country Levin suffers deeply. Gradually the bitter memory of his rejection disappears as the daily incidents of his country life absorb him. With the coming of spring and his plans for many improvements on his estate, he is quite happy. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 2: Chapters 12-17Summary and Analysis Part 2: Chapters 4-11
Summary Three social spheres form subdivisions of Petersburg’s top society: One is composed of Karenin’s government officials, another that of elderly, benevolent, pious women and their learned, ambitious husbands. Centered around the Countess Lydia lvanovna, and called the “conscience of St. Petersburg,” this set is the one through which Karenin […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 2: Chapters 4-11Summary and Analysis Part 2: Chapters 1-3
Summary Kitty is ill, and the prominent specialist who examines her, finding nothing specifically wrong suggests she be taken abroad to a health spa. Her father and Dolly both realize that Kitty’s nervous irritability is due to a broken heart. The old prince blames his wife for influencing Kitty’s affections […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 2: Chapters 1-3Summary and Analysis Part 1: Chapter 34
Summary Vronsky returns to his Petersburg apartment and finds his favorite comrade, Petrivsky, there with some friends, including Baroness Shilton, Petrivsky’s current companion. Amidst the slightly drunken chatter and gossip of his gay, broad-minded companions, Vronsky drops back into the light-hearted pleasant world he has always lived in. He has […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 1: Chapter 34Summary and Analysis Part 1: Chapters 28-33
Summary Anna wants to leave Moscow the next day. Dolly finds her sister-in-law strangely nervous, always close to tears, but Anna is unable to tell her why, that she is leaving sooner than intended in order to avoid Vronsky. She confesses to Dolly that Kitty is jealous on her account […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 1: Chapters 28-33Summary and Analysis Part 1: Chapters 24-27
Summary Leaving the Shtcherbatskys, Levin walks to his brother’s lodgings. He thinks how worthless he is, and Kitty is right to prefer Vronsky. He thinks of the ugliness of his brother’s life, and how unfair it is for society to judge his outward achievements when his soul is as truthful […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 1: Chapters 24-27Summary and Analysis Part 1: Chapters 16-23
Summary Vronsky, after his luxurious and coarse life in Petersburg, finds a “great and delicate pleasure” in the affection of this “sweet and innocent girl,” though he feels no urge to marry and sees nothing wrong in paying attention to Kitty. The next day, waiting at the train station to […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 1: Chapters 16-23Summary and Analysis Part 1: Chapters 12-15
Summary Tolstoy introduces Kitty, the eighteen-year-old girl, who was spending her first winter “out in the world” and who already has two serious suitors, Levin and Count Vronsky. Kitty’s parents, having gone through the anxieties of getting their two elder daughters married off, have renewed arguments over their third. The […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 1: Chapters 12-15