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These chapters deal with Anna and her husband Karenin.
Anna decides abruptly to leave Moscow and return to Saint
Petersburg. She confesses to Dolly that she ruined the ball for
Kitty. When Dolly makes light of it, Anna insists that she was
wrong but then defends herself by saying that it wasn\'t really
her fault. Dolly comments that Anna, in denying blame, spoke
the way Stiva would have. What does this tell you? You already
know that Stiva lies regularly.
Anna herself knows she\'s lying. She knows she\'s running away
from Vronsky and her attraction to him. On the train home,
she\'s nearly delirious with shame. At a station stop, she gets
out for a breath of air. There is a man hammering at the side
of the tracks--this hammering will be part of the recurring
nightmare that foretells her death. Again Vronsky is part of
the scene--he is following her to Moscow against her wishes.
When Anna sees her husband at the Saint Petersburg station,
her first thought is that his ears stick out in an absurd way.
At this point, Anna is not consciously blaming Karenin for her
unhappiness. She blames herself for not appreciating her
husband\'s devotion. Try to isolate the turning points in Anna\'s
realization that she must leave Karenin. Nothing yet has really
happened between Anna and Vronsky, yet Tolstoy has managed to
inject a lot of excitement into each of their brief meetings.
One of the ways he does this is by casting an atmosphere of
impending doom for Anna and the count. Another is his use of
surprise: earlier, neither you nor Vronsky were expecting to
see Anna just then; in this chapter, neither Anna nor you were
expecting to see Vronsky. Tolstoy also communicates that Anna
and Vronsky are obsessed with one another; obsessions generally
lead to tragic ends. What else has you on the edge of your
seat?
Anna has the same sinking feeling upon seeing her son
Seriozha. He\'s not as nice as she remembered him. This is
important. It not only tells you that her life pales in
comparison to the excitement she felt with Vronsky, but it\'s the
first loosening of her ties with her family.
Yet get a glimpse of Karenin\'s habits. He\'s extremely busy,
and although his wife has been away, he makes no special
arrangements to spend time with her. Tolstoy takes pains to
tell that there\'s not a trace of the animation about Anna that
was evident in Moscow.
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