Anna Karenina

“Everyone with whom the princess happened to discuss it told her one and the same thing: ‘Good gracious, in our day it’s time to abandon this antiquity. It’s young people who get married, not their parents; that means the young people should be left to arrange it as they can.’ It was fine for those who had no daughters to talk that way; but the princess understood that in making friends her daughter might fall in love, and fall in love with someone who would not want to marry or who was not right as a husband. And however much the princess was assured that in our time young people themselves must settle their fate, she was unable to believe it, as she would have been unable to believe that in anyone’s time the best toys for five-year-old children would be loaded pistols. And therefore the princess worried more about Kitty than she had about her older daughters.”

Kitty’s family epitomizes Russia’s changing social mores—even for aristocratic families. The older woman takes in the zeitgeist around her, and recognizes her own views are considered “antiquated”—lacking sophistication. Modernity suggests that autonomy is paramount, an argument that appears over and over again in Anna’s later struggles to free herself from Karenin. But the Princess dismisses this as less important than her daughter’s happiness; Tolstoy portrays her as the epitome of maternal concern and solicitude, though she is swayed by Vronsky’s charms. He notes that she compares letting young women choose as akin to giving them a weapon. Matrimony is powerful—nothing to take lightly or on a whim—requiring mature and serious discernment.

“Her shining grey eyes, which seemed dark because of their thick lashes, rested amiably and attentively on his face, as if she recognized him, and at once wandered over the approaching crowd as though looking for someone. In that brief glance Vronsky had time to notice the restrained animation that played over her face and fluttered between her shining eyes and the barely noticeable smile that curved her red lips. It was as if a surplus of something so overflowed her being that it expressed itself beyond her will, now in the brightness of her glance, now in her smile. She deliberately extinguished the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in a barely noticeable smile.”

Tolstoy takes great pains to describe Anna’s appearance through Vronsky’s eyes, stressing her beauty and vibrancy. Her eyes are “shining” and she is full of “restrained animation” that immediately captivates him. Some part of her “expressed itself beyond her will”—a phrase indicating that Anna is overflowing with life and personality and a hint at the passion Vronsky will seek to incite in her. She attempts to suppress this—perhaps a sign of deference to social convention, or a hint at her unhappy marriage, but it captures Vronsky. Though their love ends in tragedy, and this meeting is soon overshadowed by a death at the railway station, the description here reminds the reader that Anna’s unique personality will drive the narrative. Here, she is sympathetic and unmarred by tragedy—the leading lady in a brief moment of love at first sight.

“This body deprived of life was their love, the first period of their love. There was something horrible and loathsome in his recollections of what had been paid for with this terrible price of shame. Shame at her spiritual nakedness weighed on her and communicated itself to him. But, despite all the murderer’s horror before the murdered body, he had to cut this body into pieces and hide it, he had to make use of what the murderer had gained by his murder. And as the murderer falls upon this body with animosity, as if with passion, drags it off and cuts it up, so he covered her face and shoulders with kisses.”

The scene where Anna and Vronsky have finally consummated their relationship is marked with language rife with peril, loss, and even death. Vronsky is likened to a “murderer” who has killed the more innocent and less tainted emotions that once existed between the two of them. Anna has paid a “terrible price of shame” and is “spiritually naked.” In a sense, she has lost favor with God and entered a new world of sin and dependence. But Vronsky relinquishes his “horror” at his crime and embraces Anna. Tolstoy portrays him as defiling a corpse, so carried away with feeling that he has lost all sense of morality or propriety. There is no joy here—only new depths of despair and depravity.

“And alongside these memories there now stood the refusal and the pitiful position in which he must have appeared to others that evening. But time and work did their part. Painful memories were screened from him more and more by the inconspicuous but significant events of country life. With every week he remembered Kitty less often. He impatiently awaited the news that she was already married or would be married any day, hoping that this news, like the pulling of a tooth, would cure him completely. Meanwhile spring had come, beautiful, harmonious, without spring’s anticipations and deceptions, one of those rare springs that bring joy to plants, animals and people alike. This beautiful spring aroused Levin still more and strengthened him in the intention to renounce all former things, in order to arrange his solitary life firmly and independently.”

Levin dreads the idea of being a laughingstock because Kitty refused him, but daily life on his farm serves as a spiritual balm. He hopes that Kitty’s prospective marriage will be an additional cure, likening it to a dreaded but necessary medical procedure. He is drawn into the promise of the future, the budding landscape, and its “joys” which remind him of his own agency. This scene comes immediately after Anna and Vronsky’s scene of consummation: Where Anna has given way to shame and depravity, Levin is renewed.

“He paled, was about to say something, but stopped, let go of her hand and hung his head. ‘Yes, he understands all the significance of this event,’ she thought, and gratefully pressed his hand. But she was mistaken in thinking that he understood the significance of the news as she, a woman, understood it. At this news he felt with tenfold force an attack of that strange feeling of loathing for someone that had been coming over him; but along with that he understood that the crisis he desired had now come, that it was no longer possible to conceal it from her husband and in one way or another this unnatural situation had to be broken up quickly. Besides that, her excitement communicated itself physically to him. He gave her a tender, obedient look, kissed her hand, rose and silently paced the terrace. ‘Yes,’ he said, resolutely going up to her. ‘Neither of us has looked on our relation as a game, and now our fate is decided. It’s necessary to end,’ he said, looking around, ‘the lie we live in.’ ‘End it? But end it how, Alexei?’ she said softly.”

Anna hopes Vronsky understands the impact of her pregnancy, but the narrator quickly dashes this hope, emphasizing that his gender makes this impossible. He feels “loathing for someone”—perhaps society, perhaps the unborn child, perhaps himself—and is animated at the idea of a clean break with the past. He is excited by the prospect of a “crisis” while Anna dreads it, seeing no way out. He imagines a rapid ending, a kind of blow to falsehood that will resolve their crisis. While he regards Anna with love and embraces her, the two are clearly in different universes. She understands how impossible their situation is, while he revels in it. He takes their relationship seriously, but without real comprehension of the consequences. This impasse will eventually drive them further apart, as the idea of a clean break and a new future is harder to pursue legally than Vronsky imagines, given his lack of interest in Serezha.

“At the very instant when this vision was about to vanish, the truthful eyes looked at him. She recognized him, and astonished joy lit up her face. He could not have been mistaken. There were no other eyes in the world like those. There was no other being in the world capable of concentrating for him all the light and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty. He realized that she was driving to Yergushovo from the railway station. And all that had troubled Levin during that sleepless night, all the decisions he had taken, all of it suddenly vanished. He recalled with disgust his dreams of marrying a peasant woman. There, in that carriage quickly moving away and bearing to the other side of the road, was the only possibility of resolving the riddle of his life that had been weighing on him so painfully of late.”

As they did during the aftermath of his failed proposal, Kitty and Levin communicate without words. This time, however, they are in accord and mutual agreement: Kitty experiences “joy” and Levin is reminded that Kitty is part of his “meaning of life.” The moment is an epiphany to Levin: He realizes that all of his other projects have no meaning and cannot come to fruition. Kitty is like the solution to a mathematical problem or a puzzle: She is singular and certain in a universe otherwise full of doubt. Levin sees her as salvation, and the reader understands that his prior efforts to overcome this were a form of denial. But now, Kitty shares his feelings, recognizes him, and welcomes the sight. The two are coming closer together, foreshadowing a happy reunion.

“They don’t know how he has been stifling my life for eight years, stifling everything that was alive in me, that he never once even thought that I was a living woman who needed love. They don’t know how he insulted me at every step and remained pleased with himself. Didn’t I try as hard as I could to find a justification for my life? Didn’t I try to love him, and to love my son when it was no longer possible to love my husband? But the time has come, I’ve realized that I can no longer deceive myself, that I am alive, that I am not to blame if God has made me so that I must love and live. And what now? If he killed me, if he killed him, I could bear it all, I could forgive it all, but no, he... ‘How did I not guess what he would do? He’ll do what’s proper.’”

Anna is filled with regret and resentment as she reflects on her life with Karenin. He is “stifling”—a word she repeats, emphasizing that life with him was no kind of life. He has no regard for her individuality, and Anna emphasizes that she “tried” to remain married and faithful and to take refuge in parenthood when matrimony brought no solace. Though she sometimes considers herself damned, she decides now that love is also in her nature—a gift from God she can no longer deny. Again, Anna evokes death and destruction, imagining that her own death of Vronsky’s is preferable to the adherence to propriety Karenin demands. At this moment, the passion Vronsky once saw in her as a hidden force is fully expressed.

“That same clear and cold August day which had had such a hopeless effect on Anna, to him seemed stirringly invigorating and refreshed his face and neck that tingled from the dousing. The smell of brilliantine on his moustache seemed especially enjoyable to him in that fresh air. Everything he saw through the coach window, everything in that cold, clean air, in that pale light of sunset, was as fresh, cheerful and strong as himself: the rooftops glistening in the rays of the sinking sun, the sharp outlines of fences and the corners of buildings, the figures of the rare passers-by and the carriages they met, the motionless green of the trees and grass, the fields with regularly incised rows of potatoes, the slanting shadows cast by the houses, trees, and bushes and the rows of potatoes themselves. Everything was as beautiful as a pretty landscape just finished and coated with varnish.”

Though they remain devoted to one another, Anna and Vronsky’s emotional states are often quite distinct. He is “invigorated” by the weather, focused on the physical sensations of his body and the world around him, where nature seems in accord with his virility and youth. The world is a painting Vronsky breaks down into its components: buildings, people, plants—all are in harmony. In a time when Anna is in torment, Vronsky is satisfied. This moment of solitary bliss reinforces Vronsky’s greater freedom and agency, which is a divide between the two that only grows starker as time progresses.

“When she saw again those calm gestures, heard that piercing, childlike and mocking voice, her loathing for him annihilated the earlier pity, and she was merely frightened, but wished at all costs to understand her situation. ‘I cannot be your wife when I ...’ she began. He laughed a spiteful, cold laugh. ‘It must be that the sort of life you’ve chosen has affected your notions. I respect or despise the one and the other so much ... I respect your past and despise the present ... that I was far from the interpretation you have given to my words.’ Anna sighed and lowered her head. ‘However, I do not understand, having as much independence as you do,’ he went on, becoming excited, ‘telling your husband straight out about your infidelity and finding nothing reprehensible in it, as it seems, how you find it reprehensible to fulfil the duties of a wife towards your husband.’ ‘Alexei Alexandrovich! What do you want from me?’ ‘I want that I not meet that man here, and that you behave in such a way that neither society nor the servants can possibly accuse you ... that you not see him.’”

Here, it becomes increasingly apparent that Karenin has power over Anna. She hears his “childlike voice” and feels like a child herself: confused, dependent, and filled with dread. Karenin mocks her confusion, and indicates that she should have no scruples about a physical relationship with him given since she has already cast aside fidelity and propriety. He claims she is “independent” having dared to pursue an affair and disclose it to him, ignoring that she feels at his mercy. He demands that Vronsky become an invisible presence, insisting he “despises” her. Karenin’s anger and loathing are on full display, as is his paramount concern with his reputation. This level of rage contrasts with the passivity he later displays.

“Again he understood from her frightened eyes that this one way out, in her opinion, was death, and he did not let her finish. ‘Not at all,’ he said, ‘excuse me. You can’t see your situation as I can see it. Allow me to tell you frankly my opinion.’ Again he warily smiled his almond-butter smile. ‘I’ll begin from the beginning: you married a man twenty years older than yourself. You married without love or not knowing what love is. That was a mistake, let’s assume.’ ‘A terrible mistake!’ said Anna. ‘But I repeat: it’s an accomplished fact. Then you had, let’s say, the misfortune to fall in love with someone other than your husband. That is a misfortune, but it’s also an accomplished fact. And your husband has accepted and forgiven it.’ He paused after each sentence, expecting her to object, but she made no reply.”

In this scene, Anna and Stiva’s roles are reversed from the beginning of the novel. No longer the rescuer, she now seeks guidance about her marriage from him. He senses that Anna is suicidal, in despair, and hopes to comfort her with a soothing smile: Here, the reader is reminded of their sibling relationship. Stiva reminds Anna that Karenin is much older, and that she had no real understanding of what marriage is. He calls her affair with Vronsky a “misfortune” rather than a sin or tragedy. Stiva, then, adopts a thoroughly modern view of the situation: Marriages can be bad for one party, pursuing real love is natural, and Anna should not lose sight of Karenin’s forgiveness.

“‘Ai, ai, ai!’ Levin cried. ‘I bet it’s a good nine years since I last prepared for communion. I never thought of it.’ ‘You’re a fine one!’ Oblonsky said, laughing. ‘And you call me a nihilist! This won’t do, however. You’ve got to confess and take communion.’ ‘But when? There are only four days left.’ Oblonsky arranged that as well. And Levin began to prepare for communion. For Levin, as an unbeliever who at the same time respected the beliefs of others, it was very difficult to attend and participate in any Church rituals. Now, in the softened mood he found himself in, sensitive to everything, this necessity to pretend was not only difficult for him but seemed utterly impossible. Now, in this state of his glory, his blossoming, he had either to lie or to blaspheme. He felt himself unable to do either the one or the other.”

Levin’s wedding reminds the reader that though the two are very different, Stiva and Levin’s friendship is warm and sincere. Stiva teases Levin that he has something in common with social radicals for being out of practice with religion. For his lax attitude about marriage, Stiva takes seriously the requirements. Levin, as usual, is uncomfortable with any insincerity and hypocrisy. His love for Kitty has given him new sensitivity and new emotional heights; it is a “state of his glory” that his doubts may somehow harm. For Levin, love is salvation enough and his dread of hypocrisy is almost as great as his fear of death.

“The memory of all that had happened to her after her illness: the reconciliation with her husband, the break-up, the news of Vronsky’s wound, his appearance, the preparation for the divorce, the departure from her husband’s house, the leavetaking from her son-all this seemed to her a feverish dream from which she had awakened abroad, alone with Vronsky. The memory of the evil done to her husband called up in her a feeling akin to revulsion and similar to that experienced by a drowning man who has torn away another man clinging to him. That man drowned. Of course it was bad, but it was the only salvation, and it was better not to remember those dreadful details.”

To complement the geographic distance, this passage illustrates Anna’s emotional distance from her former life. Her entire life, familiar both to her and the reader, is now a “feverish dream”—wording that evokes illness and hallucination. Karenin, then, is an analogy intensified by the drowning metaphor. Karenin is a threat to her life, the “only salvation” and moving forward is the only way. The language here suggests Anna is heartless, since she does not grieve any harm she has caused. At the same time, the metaphor emphasizes that Anna’s life was in danger in her marriage: While Tolstoy suggests that adultery is a tragedy, Anna’s marriage to Karenin is scarcely cast as the solution to her problems.

“The feeling was now stronger than before; he felt even less capable than before of understanding the meaning of death, and its inevitability appeared still more horrible to him; but now, thanks to his wife’s nearness, the feeling did not drive him to despair: in spite of death, he felt the necessity to live and to love. He felt that love saved him from despair and that under the threat of despair this love was becoming still stronger and purer. No sooner had the one mystery of death been accomplished before his eyes, and gone unfathomed, than another arose, equally unfathomed, which called to love and life. The doctor confirmed his own surmise about Kitty. Her illness was pregnancy.”

Levin remains terrified of mortality—his fear of death and constant awareness of it is a preoccupation he shares with Anna. Kitty, however, anchors him to the future, as he feels “the necessity to live and to love” within his terror. The loss of his brother reminds him of how precious his marriage is. Kitty’s pregnancy and Nikolai’s death follow each other: Marriage continues to transform Levin’s life and quest for spiritual certainty.

“It is true that Alexei Alexandrovich vaguely sensed the levity and erroneousness of this notion of his faith, and he knew that when, without any thought that his forgiveness was the effect of a higher power, he had given himself to his spontaneous feeling, he had experienced greater happiness than when he thought every moment, as he did now, that Christ lived in his soul and that by signing papers he was fulfilling His will; but it was necessary for him to think that way, it was so necessary for him in his humiliation to possess at least an invented loftiness from which he, despised by everyone, could despise others, that he clung to his imaginary salvation as if it were salvation indeed.”

Though Lydia Ivanovna sympathizes with Karenin, Tolstoy’s narrator does not hesitate to unmask his hypocrisy. Karenin tries to sanctify every aspect of everyday life, even his bureaucratic work, but knows that this is a pale imitation of the real forgiveness he felt when he thought Anna was dying. His new faith is not out of spiritual conviction, but rather as a response to his “humiliation.” It is an “invented loftiness” and his salvation is “imaginary”; Karenin has told himself a story to console himself for his loss of social status. This, the narrator suggests, is a kind of mockery of authentic faith—a selfish desire for comfort and the preservation of the ego. Karenin’s spiritual journey is not like Levin’s: He does not experience authentic doubt or the anguish of unbelief, but rather chooses what most quickly brings him the most comfort.

“And they all fall upon Anna. What for? Am I any better? I at least have a husband I love. Not as I’d have wanted to love, but I do love him, and Anna did not love hers. How is she to blame, then? She wants to live. God has put that into our souls. I might very well have done the same. Even now I don’t know if I did the right thing to listen to her that terrible time when she came to me in Moscow. I ought to have left my husband then and started life over from the beginning. I might have loved and been loved in a real way. And is it better now? I don’t respect him.”

This passage provides Dolly’s insights into her life and her marriage. She, unlike Karenin, is not particularly concerned with social opinion, realizing that she cannot condemn Anna. She recognizes that love matters in a marriage and Karenin never provided this. Like Anna once did, Dolly notes that this desire for a fulfilled life is part of God’s plan for humanity. She looks back at her decision to stay with Stiva and regrets it, imagining that she could have had a “real” life. She notes that she has no “respect” for Stiva, knowing his true nature. He is beneath her, although he’s her social superior. In this moment, Dolly seems to suggest that marriage can be a prison or a trap, and that she deserved better.

“‘If you go to Moscow, I’ll go, too. I won’t stay here. Either we separate or we live together.’ ‘You know that that is my only wish. But for that ...’ ‘A divorce is necessary? I’ll write to him. I see that I can’t live like this ... But I will go with you to Moscow.’ ‘It’s as if you’re threatening me. Yet there’s nothing I wish more than not to be separated from you,’ Vronsky said, smiling. But the look that flashed in his eyes as he spoke those tender words was not only the cold, angry look of a persecuted and embittered man. She saw that look and correctly guessed its meaning. ‘If it is like this, it is a disaster!’ said the look. It was a momentary impression, but she never forgot it.”

Desperate to keep Vronsky’s regard, Anna finally discusses practical matters and agrees to a divorce, but this is not cause for joy. Instead, Vronsky sees it as a “threat” or a reminder that she will be a constant shadow. Though he smiles, the narrator says there is a gap between his expression and his inner thoughts. His resentment is deepening, and he has become “persecuted”: Where once he was tortured by his unrequited love for her, now the results of his seduction have become their own kind of pain. The narrator notes that Anna remains an acute observer, and she accurately reads the situation. But perhaps this accuracy is temporary; the impression is “momentary,” but Anna takes it as permanent, which likely contributes to their final estrangement and her descent into suicidal thoughts.

“It was not a painting but a lovely living woman with dark, curly hair, bare shoulders and arms, and a pensive half smile on her lips, covered with tender down, looking at him triumphantly and tenderly with troubling eyes. Only, because she was not alive, she was more beautiful than a living woman can be. ‘I’m very glad,’ he suddenly heard a voice beside him, evidently addressing him, the voice of the same woman he was admiring in the portrait. Anna came to meet him from behind the trellis, and in the half light of the study Levin saw the woman of the portrait in a dark dress of various shades of blue, not in the same position, and not with the same expression, but at the same height of beauty that the artist had caught. She was less dazzling in reality, but in the living woman there was some new attractiveness that was not in the portrait.”

Tolstoy brings back the painting of Anna from earlier in the text— the artist Mikhailov, who was more talented than Vronsky or Anna guessed, has captured Levin. Anna, as usual, is described in terms of her pale skin, dark hair, and eyes, but now, they are “troubling” where before, Vronsky and others saw life in them. The painting is more beautiful than the real Anna: In it, she is dazzling as though she blinds the senses to all else. But the suggestion that her eyes are haunted suggests the art, too, may have a kind of supernatural power. When Anna meets the real Anna, he is just as spellbound, forgetting what she represents for Kitty or himself. Levin is effectively seduced both in art and life, however temporarily. This captures both the power of Anna’s personality—even at the near-height of her tragedy—and his acute sensibilities and eye for beauty, usually directed at the landscape or his wife.

“He knew and felt only that what was being accomplished was similar to what had been accomplished a year ago in a hotel in a provincial capital, on the deathbed of his brother Nikolai. But that had been grief and this was joy. But that grief and this joy were equally outside all ordinary circumstances of life, were like holes in this ordinary life, through which something higher showed. And just as painful, as tormenting in its coming, was what was now being accomplished; and just as inconceivably, in contemplating this higher thing, the soul rose to such heights as it had never known before, where reason was no longer able to overtake it.”

Once more, Levin links birth with death. He posits that both states are “outside of ordinary circumstances”—a world apart and unlike the practical world he knows. As at the deathbed, Levin is solely focused on his emotions and his spiritual state. He can glimpse “something higher” and finally strop tormenting himself with ideas. The birth of his son, Tolstoy implies, will bring him closer to God, ending the torment of his agnosticism.

“Oblonsky was in low spirits, which rarely happened to him, and could not fall asleep for a long time. Everything he recalled, everything, was vile, but vilest of all was the recollection, as if of something shameful, of the evening at Countess Lydia Ivanovna’s. The next day he received from Alexei Alexandrovich a definitive refusal to divorce Anna and understood that this decision was based on what the Frenchman had said in his real or feigned sleep.”

Stiva’s uncharacteristic depression and characterization of the seance as “vile” highlight how unnatural and inauthentic Karenin’s new spirituality is. For Stiva, not a particularly scrupulous man, to speak of “shameful” conduct, reinforces how unnerving the events were. Karenin, in the end, is only “definitive” with the help of an outsider, and the narrator suggests that the medium may be a charlatan. Karenin, then, puts his own fate and Anna’s in the hands of not only a stranger, but possibly a fraud.

“‘That’s not the cause,’ she said, ‘and I do not even understand how the fact that I am completely in your power can be a cause of irritation, as you put it. What is uncertain in my situation? On the contrary.’ ‘It’s a great pity you don’t want to understand,’ he interrupted her, stubbornly wishing to express his thought. ‘The uncertainty consists in the fact that to you it seems I’m free.’ ‘Concerning that you may be perfectly at ease,’ she said and, turning away, began to drink her coffee. She raised her cup, holding out her little finger, and brought it to her lips. After taking several sips, she glanced at him and, from the expression on his face, clearly understood that he was disgusted by her hand, and her gesture, and the sound her lips made.”

Anna somewhat irrationally insists that legal certainty means little to her, and highlights her own dependence, as though to convince Vronsky how needed he is. She denies her own unhappiness when she believes he has misidentified the cause. Vronsky reminds her of her past resentment of his autonomy, but she ignores him. In this moment, he seems more rational, more anchored in the world, while she abstractly references feelings and power. As in earlier arguments, she reads his expressions, assuming he is “disgusted” by her most minute gestures. This contrasts to earlier chapters when she felt the depth of his passion for her in his eyes and underlines the widening gulf between them.

“‘I’ve heard so much about you from all sides, even from your husband. He visited me, and I liked him very much,’ she added, obviously with ill intent. ‘Where is he?’ ‘He went to the country,’ Kitty said, blushing. ‘Be sure to give him my regards.’ ‘I’ll be sure to!’ Kitty naïvely repeated, looking into her eyes with compassion. ‘Farewell then, Dolly!’ and having kissed Dolly and shaken Kitty’s hand, Anna hastily went out. ‘The same as always and just as attractive. Such a handsome woman!’ said Kitty, when she was alone with her sister. ‘But there’s something pathetic about her! Terribly pathetic!’ ‘No, today there was something peculiar about her,’ said Dolly. ‘When I saw her off in the front hall, I thought she was going to cry.’”

Here, Tolstoy uses Kitty and Dolly to illustrate how much Anna has changed. Where her behavior at the ball might have been ambiguous, now she reminds Kitty of her meeting with Levin “obviously with ill intent” in a desire to assert power in her time of despair. Kitty, now a mature woman, has “compassion” for Anna, noting that her beauty now carries something “pathetic.” Kitty is no longer dazzled by Anna’s beauty and focuses on the tragedy underneath. Dolly, who knows Anna better, senses that something is wrong: The only witness to Anna’s suffering is her last remaining friend.

“And suddenly, remembering the man who was run over the day she first met Vronsky, she realized what she must do. With a quick, light step she went down the stairs that led from the water pump to the rails and stopped close to the passing train. She looked at the bottoms of the carriages, at the bolts and chains and big cast-iron wheels of the first carriage slowly rolling by, and tried to estimate by eye the midpoint between the front and back wheels and the moment when the middle would be in front of her. ‘There!’ she said to herself, staring into the shadow of the carriage at the sand mixed with coal poured between the sleepers, ‘there, right in the middle, and I’ll punish him and be rid of everybody and of myself.’”

Anna recognizes the symbolism in her surroundings, recalling the scene in the novel’s opening when she had her first premonition that associated Vronsky with death. She has her usual “quick, light step” emphasizing that some aspects of her are consistent even in crisis. She is calculating, eyeing the dimensions of the train, not weeping or hysterical. She focuses on vengeance, declaring her desire to “punish” Vronsky as her final end. There is no love in her, no thought of her children—only thoughts of retribution and death.

“And he tried to remember her as she had been when he first met her, also at a station, mysterious, enchanting, loving, seeking and giving happiness, and not cruelly vengeful as he remembered her in the last moment. He tried to remember his best moments with her, but those moments were forever poisoned. He remembered only her triumphant, accomplished threat of totally unnecessary but ineffaceable regret. He ceased to feel the toothache, and sobs distorted his face.”

Vronsky’s grief underscores how inaccurate some of Anna’s worst fears likely were: It seems unlikely he would suffer so if he no longer loved her. The narrator also provides no proof of her earlier fears of an affair. Instead, Vronsky remembers their first meeting, all of Anna’s charm and power, but these memories cannot overcome the tragedy and loss. She is “triumphant” while he gives way to “sobs.” In the end, she has broken him. Here, his gender is no advantage, except that he can seek death on a battlefield to end his grief.