Anna Part 4

This was a shorter section of the book by length and pages, but it ended up being action packed. I hope you are still enjoying the book club. Here are my summaries and take-aways from Part 4 of Anna Karenina.

Alexey Gets Mad

Anna the perpetual boundary crosser cannot follow even the simplest instructions to stop embarrassing and infuriating her husband. This brings me back to my frequent criticism of her when she says that she gets scared of him at times. And it also calls into question the fact that he might not be "leading her" or being "a strong man" because he keeps giving her rope and she keeps hanging herself with it. His rationale for trying to uphold his marriage vows and godly duties have been explored in previous chapters, but Anna can't ever bring herself to do the right thing, and calls Vronsky over while her husband is supposed to be busy. Unfortunately Vronsky was taking a nap and showed up a bit late, and came face to face with Mr. Karinine is his driveway. Anna finds this situation to be unfair to her, because she expected that her husband would still be gone while she was hoping to sneak in a late night tryst.

"The feeling of furious anger with his wife, who would not observe the proprieties and keep to the one stipulation he had laid on her, not to receive her lover in her own home, gave him no peace. She had not complied with his request, and he was bound to punish her and carry out his threat—obtain a divorce and take away his son. He knew all the difficulties connected with this course..."

He's at the end of his rope, and he says in a later passage that he doesn’t appreciate that this domestic drama is causing him to have a poor mood and be distracted. All he asked way for her to be discreet, and that’s a pretty generous offer from a man who is busy professionally. It wouldn’t take much for her to carry on the affair, especially with her friend Betsy’s enabling of the situation. But that’s not good enough. She just keeps pushing it further.

There ends up being a situation where Anna’s brother Oblonsky, the husband of Dolly/Darya becomes aware of the marital troubles. I was so touched by this encounter, because it drives home that Anna is not just destroying her relationship with Alexey, her husband, but she is causing waves through her and her husbands family and extended social circles. I think of my own friends circle, and how when break ups happen, whether you pick a side or not, it causes irreparable damage to the harmony of the friendship and community of a social circle. Oblonsky and Alexey both seem to grieve the realization that if the marriage ends, their social relationships will change forever.

I find it interesting after Oblonsky repeats several times to dress casually, and not formally, that Alexey ends up arriving to the dinner, based on social pressure and obligation, in a full formal dress. I’m not sure if that it something that the audience of the book is supposed to find annoying. Anna would certainly be annoyed. He’s not listening to clear instructions to not be formal. But maybe dressing formal is the only way that Alexey can tolerate this social function and still feel in control of the way he is presenting himself or being perceived.

There is a long and detailed conversation at this party about women’s rights, and their desire to expand their roles. I didn’t know what to say or summarize from this part. But as the many characters take turns making comments, it randomly comes up again that infidelity should be handled by a duel. One guest proudly boasts, as he gossips about another family, “He shot his rival, like a man!!”

Later he has a long conversation with Dolly when he becomes even more angry, I think there’s an element of pain of having to openly discuss this with others.

“Darya Alexandrovna,” he said, now looking straight into Dolly’s kindly, troubled face, and feeling that his tongue was being loosened in spite of himself, “I would give a great deal for doubt to be still possible. When I doubted, I was miserable, but it was better than now. When I doubted, I had hope; but now there is no hope, and still I doubt of everything. I am in such doubt of everything that I even hate my son, and sometimes do not believe he is my son. I am very unhappy.”

I takes a lot for a man to admit such things so plainly. He doesn’t deserve this, though I do think Darya is an interesting confident, there is some problems with seeking advice from a woman, who has repeatedly also expressed that she feels stuck, but now she’s trying to be soft and hopeful.

“No, wait a minute. You must not ruin her. Wait a little; I will tell you about myself. I was married, and my husband deceived me; in anger and jealousy, I would have thrown up everything, I would myself.... But I came to myself again; and who did it? Anna saved me. And here I am living on. The children are growing up, my husband has come back to his family, and feels his fault, is growing purer, better, and I live on.... I have forgiven it, and you ought to forgive!” Alexey Alexandrovitch heard her, but her words had no effect on him now. All the hatred of that day when he had resolved on a divorce had sprung up again in his soul. He shook himself, and said in a shrill, loud voice:—”

“That was what I did indeed when she herself made known to me my humiliation; I left everything as of old. I gave her a chance to reform, I tried to save her. And with what result? She would not regard the slightest request—that she should observe decorum,” he said, getting heated. “One may save anyone who does not want to be ruined; but if the whole nature is so corrupt, so depraved, that ruin itself seems to be her salvation, what’s to be done?” “Anything, only not divorce!” answered Darya Alexandrovna"

As unfortunate as this situation has become, I think that Alexey is correct in giving up at this point. I continue to see him as a character that I never disagree with during his principled rationales of all of his decision making.

Vronsky's Heart is Changing

Vronsky and Anna are souring towards each other. Although they both are negative and toxic people to start out with, they are perpetuating the negative traits in each other. Vronsky is becoming tired of her, and she is becoming anxious and jealous of him, as she has narrowed her life to include only him. There’s a lot of codependency that is developing here. And Vronsky is quite cowardly in how he chooses to ignore this instead of deal with it.

"These fits of jealousy, which of late had been more and more frequent with her, horrified him, and however much he tried to disguise the fact, made him feel cold to her, although he knew the cause of her jealousy was her love for him. How often he had told himself that her love was happiness; and now she loved him as a woman can love when love has outweighed for her all the good things of life—and he was much further from happiness than when he had followed her from Moscow. Then he had thought himself unhappy, but happiness was before him; now he felt that the best happiness was already left behind. She was utterly unlike what she had been when he first saw her. Both morally and physically she had changed for the worse. She had broadened out all over, and in her face at the time when she was speaking of the actress there was an evil expression of hatred that distorted it. He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when his love was stronger, he could, if he had greatly wished it, have torn that love out of his heart; but now, when as at that moment it seemed to him, he felt no love for her, he knew that what bound him to her could not be broken."

I think a lot of Fascinating Womanhood’s teaching would frown at these entire interactions. Instead of a beautiful expression of dependence, where a RP woman may depend on her man/captain/lover, her motivations are just negative and self-centered. Many things have drastically changed, but her fascinating languor, and wide-eyed curiosity and mystery have revealed itself to only be self-centered pity. I haven’t seen Anna giving any care, compassion, intimacy, or friendship toward Vronsky in quite a while, she’s pushed him into a corner where all she can spend her energy on is complaining about things to the only person who is (trapped) listening to her whining.

Vronsky does even more soul searching, in his disagreements with the prince.

"The chief reason why the prince was so particularly disagreeable to Vronsky was that he could not help seeing himself in him. And what he saw in this mirror did not gratify his self-esteem. He was a very stupid and very self-satisfied and very healthy and very well-washed man, and nothing else. He was a gentleman—that was true, and Vronsky could not deny it. He was equable and not cringing with his superiors, was free and ingratiating in his behavior with his equals, and was contemptuously indulgent with his inferiors."

By the time Alexey has finally left Anna it leaves Vronsky alone to be present for the childbirth and subsequent serious illness. I think it's possible that both men are secretly hopeful that she will die from the fever, but I'll have to flush out a few more quotes to see if I can prove it. I again think this is the most horrible way to "keep" a man, through guilt instead of affection. The partnership is a prison, instead of the beautiful potentials of a loving relationship.

As Alexey approaches Anna's sickbed,

"At the table, sitting sideways in a low chair, was Vronsky, his face hidden in his hands, weeping. He jumped up at the doctor’s voice, took his hands from his face, and saw Alexey Alexandrovitch. Seeing the husband, he was so overwhelmed that he sat down again, drawing his head down to his shoulders, as if he wanted to disappear; but he made an effort over himself, got up and said: “She is dying. The doctors say there is no hope. I am entirely in your power, only let me be here... though I am at your disposal. I...”

Let’s be honest. Both men are very powerless in this situation if Anna is very sick and dying, but I can see the scene play out and I can visualize the difference in the body language of both men. Alexey has come, begrudgingly, as a sense of duty to give final honorable presence as his wife dies. Vronsky, is sitting in a chair in despair over his own powerlessness, and he has no sense of duty, no idea how to cope. I’m not going to criticize people for not “grieving in the right way” but I think this is another character flaw of Vronsky’s that he’s just utterly being effected by outside circumstances instead of taking a deep breath and deciding how he can be effective at all.

This is the beginning of a life altering revelation for Vronsky, when he can finally face the man who he thought he would be dueling, and it turns out that Vronsky will be defeated before the duel even gets underway. Alexey asks Vronsky to leave. And Vronsky gets a full force reality check of the type of man that Anna has been whining about and betraying.

"This is my position: you can trample me in the mud, make me the laughing-stock of the world, I will not abandon her, and I will never utter a word of reproach to you,” Alexey Alexandrovitch went on. “My duty is clearly marked for me; I ought to be with her, and I will be. If she wishes to see you, I will let you know, but now I suppose it would be better for you to go away.” He got up, and sobs cut short his words. Vronsky too was getting up, and in a stooping, not yet erect posture, looked up at him from under his brows. He did not understand Alexey Alexandrovitch’s feeling, but he felt that it was something higher and even unattainable for him with his view of life."

It throws him into moral turmoil.

"All the habits and rules of his life that had seemed so firm, had turned out suddenly false and inapplicable. The betrayed husband, who had figured till that time as a pitiful creature, an incidental and somewhat ludicrous obstacle to his happiness, had suddenly been summoned by her herself, elevated to an awe-inspiring pinnacle, and on the pinnacle that husband had shown himself, not malignant, not false, not ludicrous, but kind and straightforward and large."

​

VRONSKY SHOOTS HIMSELF

(Chapter 18)

I really don't know what to say about this. It was so shocking. I also don't want to quote the entire breathtaking destructiveness that led to this point. But I’ll give you the end of it. Please discuss!

“Of course,” he repeated, when for the third time his thought passed again round the same spellbound circle of memories and images, and pulling the revolver to the left side of his chest, and clutching it vigorously with his whole hand, as it were, squeezing it in his fist, he pulled the trigger. He did not hear the sound of the shot, but a violent blow on his chest sent him reeling. He tried to clutch at the edge of the table, dropped the revolver, staggered, and sat down on the ground, looking about him in astonishment. He did not recognize his room, looking up from the ground, at the bent legs of the table, at the wastepaper basket, and the tiger-skin rug. The hurried, creaking steps of his servant coming through the drawing room brought him to his senses. He made an effort at thought, and was aware that he was on the floor; and seeing blood on the tiger-skin rug and on his arm, he knew he had shot himself.”

​

Levin and Kitty Find Happiness

I think the setting of the scene of the dinner party is painting Levin in the light of the RP man that was very difficult for everyone to see in the beginning. At the dinner party Levin is discussing hunting bears, and some of his favorite philosophical subjects, when Oblonsky steps in as the wingman.

“Quite without attracting notice, without glancing at them, as though there were no other places left, Stepan Arkadyevitch put Levin and Kitty side by side. “Oh, you may as well sit there,” he said to Levin.”

I think the chalk game that Levin and Kitty have is quite cheesy, where they are writing phrases to each other instead of actually talking it out. They both seem to be trembling with fear and apprehension and excitement, but my take away is that after all the other darkness going on that this is actually quite cute. It’s a private moment, it’s very awkward for both of them, but they immediately become enraptured by each other, and are able to communicate effectively in a very primitive way of writing sentences by abbreviation.

"He snatched the chalk with nervous, trembling fingers, and breaking it, wrote the initial letters of the following phrase, “I have nothing to forget and to forgive; I have never ceased to love you.” She glanced at him with a smile that did not waver. “I understand,” she said in a whisper. He sat down and wrote a long phrase. She understood it all, and without asking him, “Is it this?” took the chalk and at once answered."

"In their conversation everything had been said; it had been said that she loved him, and that she would tell her father and mother that he would come tomorrow morning."

Levin even got to say thank you to Oblonsky as he was on his way out of the party. And Oblonsky is affable as ever! For those of you who have wanted me to give Oblonsky more attention and credit, I do so below.

"Levin only had time to tell him he was happy, and that he loved him, and would never, never forget what he had done for him. The eyes and the smile of Stepan Arkadyevitch showed Levin that he comprehended that feeling fittingly. “Oh, so it’s not time to die yet?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pressing Levin’s hand with emotion. “N-n-no!” said Levin."

After a sleepless night Levin approaches Kitty's family, and is embraced by everyone in her household. I also find it charming that Levin is moved by the warm relationship she has with her father. Kitty really has stepped it up in her embodiment of the traits of femininity and family stability that are prized in the RP circles. She’s stayed chaste, she reevaluated priorities, got a harsh dose of reality, became bitter, and then overcame it.

"“I’ve long, always wished for this!” said the prince, taking Levin by the arm and drawing him towards himself. “Even when this little feather-head fancied...” “Papa!” shrieked Kitty, and shut his mouth with her hands. “Well, I won’t!” he said. “I’m very, very ... plea ... Oh, what a fool I am...” He embraced Kitty, kissed her face, her hand, her face again, and made the sign of the cross over her. And there came over Levin a new feeling of love for this man, till then so little known to him, when he saw how slowly and tenderly Kitty kissed his muscular hand."

​

Anna Throws It All Away Again

I was really trying to pay attention to Anna's delirium because I am a nurse and I have delt with both generalized confusion from sepsis and fevers as well as post-partum psychosis, though not as often. I think it was more difficult for the author to get this part accurately, but he's pretty brilliant at painting a picture most other time.

Anna says during her fevers remorse, maybe a glimpse at her uncensored unconscious. Delirious people say all kinds of weird shit, but sometimes they confess scary things, sometimes they say devastating things. I used to take care of people who were on hospice, and I often heard a lot of very meaningful regret. Eric Ericson has a lot to say about this topic if you follow his theories about stages of development. I used to have to write about this topic a lot in nursing school, and although Anna is not in the appropriate age range to be in the [Ego Integrity vs Despair](https://www.verywellmind.com/integrity-versus-despair-2795738) stage, I think her near death experience is bringing her to this stage. I’d have to think about Erikson harder to figure out where she is going wrong, because she should be doing [“Intimacy vs Isolation](https://www.verywellmind.com/integrity-versus-despair-2795738) but maybe she got the previous one wrong [“Identity vs Confusion”](https://www.verywellmind.com/identity-versus-confusion-2795735) In theory if she was having trouble on the earlier developmental stages it will carry through life forever.

Okay, I’ll get off this tangent about Erikson, lets see what she said.

"Don’t be surprised at me. I’m still the same.... But there is another woman in me, I’m afraid of her: she loved that man, and I tried to hate you, and could not forget about her that used to be. I’m not that woman. Now I’m my real self, all myself. I’m dying now, I know I shall die, ask him. Even now I feel—see here, the weights on my feet, on my hands, on my fingers. My fingers—see how huge they are! But this will soon all be..."

And also,

"And I’ll go to Rome; there’s a wilderness, and there I shall be no trouble to any one, only I’ll take Seryozha and the little one.... No, you can’t forgive me! I know, it can’t be forgiven! No, no, go away, you’re too good!” She held his hand in one burning hand, while she pushed him away with the other."

She even was rambling to Vronsky that she wanted him to know that her husband is a saint. And he needed to uncover his eyes, from his devastating body language to look her saint of a husband in the eyes!

After she recovers, after a long period of weakness, she again finds herself in a position where she was given grace and forgiveness and she can't stand it. Vronsky, having pretty much convinced people that maybe his suicide attempt was an accident, is going to go away and Anna is bitter and bitching about her husband to her friend.

PS. I know rich people give their kids to wet nurses, which probably happened for an extended period because she was ill, but really, no fucking mention of her new daughter at all. Where is the oxytocin? I have personal beliefs about not wanting to be a mother, I’d rather have dogs, but I think that this is an opportunity to just fall into some sort of distraction trying to be a mom, to get away from her constant misery. But maybe she’s not that into being a mom or has post-partum. I just think that if a baby came out of my body, I would think about it occasionally, instead of just ruminating about how much I hate my husband. She could even ruminate about how it’s Vronsky’s baby and she loves him better. All of a sudden her motherhood is just completely absent. I think it’s sad.

I just went back to read this part and Alexey is dealing with the doctor trying to figure out if the wet nurse isn’t doing a good enough job, and he walks in on Anna just selfishly airing her own grievances while her daughter is literally ill.

Poor Alexey! His humiliation and the consequences of his kindness just get more and more cruel?

"The eagerness died out of her face, as it always did, at the sight of her husband; she dropped her head and looked round uneasily at Betsy. Betsy, dressed in the height of the latest fashion, …, was sitting beside Anna, her tall flat figure held erect. Bowing her head, she greeted Alexey Alexandrovitch with an ironical smile."

"He saw clearly that all the world and his wife expected of him something, but what exactly, he could not make out. He felt that this was rousing in his soul a feeling of anger destructive of his peace of mind and of all the good of his achievement. He believed that for Anna herself it would be better to break off all relations with Vronsky; but if they all thought this out of the question, he was even ready to allow these relations to be renewed, so long as the children were not disgraced, and he was not deprived of them nor forced to change his position."

​

Oblonsky

I think this section of the book was where Oblonsky really ended up being the star. Not only did he facilitate the party which brought Kitty and Levin back together, but he intervened in other ways too.

I felt a lot more pain and depth from Oblonsky than the silly serial cheater that we are used to. He was so disappointed when he heard of Alexey's marital troubles, and Alexey tried to decline an invitation,

"Alexey Alexandrovitch had thought to pass at once into those frigid relations in which he ought to stand with the brother of a wife against whom he was beginning a suit for divorce. But he had not taken into account the ocean of kindliness brimming over in the heart of Stepan Arkadyevitch. Stepan Arkadyevitch opened wide his clear, shining eyes. “Why can’t you? What do you mean?” he asked in perplexity, speaking in French. “Oh, but it’s a promise. And we’re all counting on you.”

Later Oblonsky has a heart to heart with Anna and Alexey, first with Anna,

"He asked her how she was, and how she had spent the morning. “Very, very miserably. Today and this morning and all past days and days to come,” she said. “I think you’re giving way to pessimism. You must rouse yourself, you must look life in the face. I know it’s hard, but...” “I have heard it said that women love men even for their vices,” Anna began suddenly, “but I hate him for his virtues. I can’t live with him. Do you understand? the sight of him has a physical effect on me, it makes me beside myself. I can’t, I can’t live with him. What am I to do? I have been unhappy, and used to think one couldn’t be more unhappy, but the awful state of things I am going through now, I could never have conceived. Would you believe it, that knowing he’s a good man, a splendid man, that I’m not worth his little finger, still I hate him. I hate him for his generosity. And there’s nothing left for me.."

Stiva (Oblonsky) tries to assure her that there is a solution to every problem.

Later he talks to Alexey, who has written another well thought out explanation in the form of a letter.

“I see that my presence is irksome to you. Painful as it is to me to believe it, I see that it is so, and cannot be otherwise. I don’t blame you, and God is my witness that on seeing you at the time of your illness I resolved with my whole heart to forget all that had passed between us and to begin a new life. I do not regret, and shall never regret, what I have done; but I have desired one thing—your good, the good of your soul—and now I see I have not attained that. Tell me yourself what will give you true happiness and peace to your soul. I put myself entirely in your hands, and trust to your feeling of what’s right.” Stepan Arkadyevitch handed back the letter, and with the same surprise continued looking at his brother-in-law, not knowing what to say. This silence was so awkward for both of them that Stepan Arkadyevitch’s lips began twitching nervously, while he still gazed without speaking at Karenin’s face. “That’s what I wanted to say to her,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, turning away. “Yes, yes...” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, not able to answer for the tears that were choking him.”

"“I am afraid she does not understand her own position. She is not a judge,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, recovering himself. “She is crushed, simply crushed by your generosity. If she were to read this letter, she would be incapable of saying anything, she would only hang her head lower than ever.”

And whether it is for good or for bad he does get Alexey to seperate from Anna. Hopefully Alexey is able to move forward and find some peace.

Anna's Love is Fake and Conditional

One of the possible conditions for divorce is that there is an extended period of abandonment, it might be as long as five years. And Anna, who has previously said that being separated from her son would be the most wicked and cruel thing ever, ends up doing it. She leaves the baby too.

"The desire for life, waxing stronger with recovered health, was so intense, and the conditions of life were so new and pleasant, that Anna felt unpardonably happy. The more she got to know Vronsky, the more she loved him. She loved him for himself, and for his love for her. Her complete ownership of him was a continual joy to her. His presence was always sweet to her. All the traits of his character, which she learned to know better and better, were unutterably dear to her. His appearance, changed by his civilian dress, was as fascinating to her as though she were some young girl in love. In everything he said, thought, and did, she saw something particularly noble and elevated. Her adoration of him alarmed her indeed; she sought and could not find in him anything not fine. She dared not show him her sense of her own insignificance beside him. It seemed to her that, knowing this, he might sooner cease to love her; and she dreaded nothing now so much as losing his love, though she had no grounds for fearing it. But she could not help being grateful to him for his attitude to her, and showing that she appreciated it. He, who had in her opinion such a marked aptitude for a political career, in which he would have been certain to play a leading part—he had sacrificed his ambition for her sake, and never betrayed the slightest regret. He was more lovingly respectful to her than ever, and the constant care that she should not feel the awkwardness of her position never deserted him for a single instant. He, so manly a man, never opposed her, had indeed, with her, no will of his own, and was anxious, it seemed, for nothing but to anticipate her wishes. And she could not but appreciate this, even though the very intensity of his solicitude for her, the atmosphere of care with which he surrounded her, sometimes weighed upon her."

The man Anna just described: hanging his life up to be with her, giving up a career, a purpose, never challenging her, giving up his own self to please her, is the worst kind of Beta Bux hell I could imagine. That type of man grows very tiresome quickly. This is a fever fantasy that she is having that is temporary. It will take little time for her to become disgusted with Vronsky's malleability and lack of ambition. As much as he has ruined her. She has now ruined him. This is obviously not a win.

"Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy."

"He was sorry for her, and angry notwithstanding. He assured her of his love because he saw that this was the only means of soothing her, and he did not reproach her in words, but in his heart he reproached her. And the asseverations of his love, which seemed to him so vulgar that he was ashamed to utter them, she drank in eagerly, and gradually became calmer. The next day, completely reconciled, they left for the country."

Okay ladies, please discuss. And I totally left out the long conversation about womens rights and roles from the dinner party. There was so much to cover! I will try to publish Section 5 by June 12!

I can’t tell you enough how much I love and appreciate the long comments on these posts. Love you guys. Sorry I procrastinated.