An excerpt from the original text.(complete · 2016 words)
“ou met him?” she asked, when they had sat down at the table in the
lamplight. “You’re punished, you see, for being late.”
“Yes; but how was it? Wasn’t he to be at the council?”
“He had been and come back, and was going out somewhere again. But
that’s no matter. Don’t talk about it. Where have you been? With the
prince still?”
She knew every detail of his existence. He was going to say that he had
been up all night and had dropped asleep, but looking at her thrilled
and rapturous face, he was ashamed. And he said he had had to go to
report on the prince’s departure.
“But it’s over now? He is gone?”
“Thank God it’s over! You wouldn’t believe how insufferable it’s been
for me.”
“Why so? Isn’t it the life all of you, all young men, always lead?” she
said, knitting her brows; and taking up the crochet work that was lying
on the table, she began drawing the hook out of it, without looking at
Vronsky.
“I gave that life up long ago,” said he, wondering at the change in her
face, and trying to divine its meaning. “And I confess,” he said, with
a smile, showing his thick, white teeth, “this week I’ve been, as it
were, looking at myself in a glass, seeing that life, and I didn’t like
it.”
She held the work in her hands, but did not crochet, and looked at him
with strange, shining, and hostile eyes.
“This morning Liza came to see me—they’re not afraid to call on me, in
spite of the Countess Lidia Ivanovna,” she put in—“and she told me
about your Athenian evening. How loathsome!”
“I was just going to say....”
She interrupted him. “It was that Thérèse you used to know?”
“I was just saying....”
“How disgusting you are, you men! How is it you can’t understand that a
woman can never forget that,” she said, getting more and more angry,
and so letting him see the cause of her irritation, “especially a woman
who cannot know your life? What do I know? What have I ever known?” she
said, “what you tell me. And how do I know whether you tell me the
truth?...”
“Anna, you hurt me. Don’t you trust me? Haven’t I told you that I
haven’t a thought I wouldn’t lay bare to you?”
“Yes, yes,” she said, evidently trying to suppress her jealous
thoughts. “But if only you knew how wretched I am! I believe you, I
believe you.... What were you saying?”
But he could not at once recall what he had been going to say. 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.
“Well, well, what was it you were going to say about the prince? I have
driven away the fiend,” she added. The fiend was the name they had
given her jealousy. “What did you begin to tell me about the prince?
Why did you find it so tiresome?”
“Oh, it was intolerable!” he said, trying to pick up the thread of his
interrupted thought. “He does not improve on closer acquaintance. If
you want him defined, here he is: a prime, well-fed beast such as takes
medals at the cattle shows, and nothing more,” he said, with a tone of
vexation that interested her.
“No; how so?” she replied. “He’s seen a great deal, anyway; he’s
cultured?”
“It’s an utterly different culture—their culture. He’s cultivated, one
sees, simply to be able to despise culture, as they despise everything
but animal pleasures.”
“But don’t you all care for these animal pleasures?” she said, and
again he noticed a dark look in her eyes that avoided him.
“How is it you’re defending him?” he said, smiling.
“I’m not defending him, it’s nothing to me; but I imagine, if you had
not cared for those pleasures yourself, you might have got out of them.
But if it affords you satisfaction to gaze at Thérèse in the attire of
Eve....”
“Again, the devil again,” Vronsky said, taking the hand she had laid on
the table and kissing it.
“Yes; but I can’t help it. You don’t know what I have suffered waiting
for you. I believe I’m not jealous. I’m not jealous: I believe you when
you’re here; but when you’re away somewhere leading your life, so
incomprehensible to me....”
She turned away from him, pulled the hook at last out of the crochet
work, and rapidly, with the help of her forefinger, began working loop
after loop of the wool that was dazzling white in the lamplight, while
the slender wrist moved swiftly, nervously in the embroidered cuff.
“How was it, then? Where did you meet Alexey Alexandrovitch?” Her voice
sounded in an unnatural and jarring tone.
“We ran up against each other in the doorway.”
“And he bowed to you like this?”
She drew a long face, and half-closing her eyes, quickly transformed
her expression, folded her hands, and Vronsky suddenly saw in her
beautiful face the very expression with which Alexey Alexandrovitch had
bowed to him. He smiled, while she laughed gaily, with that sweet, deep
laugh, which was one of her greatest charms.
“I don’t understand him in the least,” said Vronsky. “If after your
avowal to him at your country house he had broken with you, if he had
called me out—but this I can’t understand. How can he put up with such
a position? He feels it, that’s evident.”
“He?” she said sneeringly. “He’s perfectly satisfied.”
“What are we all miserable for, when everything might be so happy?”
“Only not he. Don’t I know him, the falsity in which he’s utterly
steeped?... Could one, with any feeling, live as he is living with me?
He understands nothing, and feels nothing. Could a man of any feeling
live in the same house with his unfaithful wife? Could he talk to her,
call her ‘my dear’?”
And again she could not help mimicking him: “‘Anna, ma chère; Anna,
dear!’”
“He’s not a man, not a human being—he’s a doll! No one knows him; but I
know him. Oh, if I’d been in his place, I’d long ago have killed, have
torn to pieces a wife like me. I wouldn’t have said, ‘Anna, ma
chère’! He’s not a man, he’s an official machine. He doesn’t
understand that I’m your wife, that he’s outside, that he’s
superfluous.... Don’t let’s talk of him!...”
“You’re unfair, very unfair, dearest,” said Vronsky, trying to soothe
her. “But never mind, don’t let’s talk of him. Tell me what you’ve been
doing? What is the matter? What has been wrong with you, and what did
the doctor say?”
She looked at him with mocking amusement. Evidently she had hit on
other absurd and grotesque aspects in her husband and was awaiting the
moment to give expression to them.
But he went on:
“I imagine that it’s not illness, but your condition. When will it be?”
The ironical light died away in her eyes, but a different smile, a
consciousness of something, he did not know what, and of quiet
melancholy, came over her face.
“Soon, soon. You say that our position is miserable, that we must put
an end to it. If you knew how terrible it is to me, what I would give
to be able to love you freely and boldly! I should not torture myself
and torture you with my jealousy.... And it will come soon, but not as
we expect.”
And at the thought of how it would come, she seemed so pitiable to
herself that tears came into her eyes, and she could not go on. She
laid her hand on his sleeve, dazzling and white with its rings in the
lamplight.
“It won’t come as we suppose. I didn’t mean to say this to you, but
you’ve made me. Soon, soon, all will be over, and we shall all, all be
at peace, and suffer no more.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, understanding her.
“You asked when? Soon. And I shan’t live through it. Don’t interrupt
me!” and she made haste to speak. “I know it; I know for certain. I
shall die; and I’m very glad I shall die, and release myself and you.”
Tears dropped from her eyes; he bent down over her hand and began
kissing it, trying to hide his emotion, which, he knew, had no sort of
grounds, though he could not control it.
“Yes, it’s better so,” she said, tightly gripping his hand. “That’s the
only way, the only way left us.”
He had recovered himself, and lifted his head.
“How absurd! What absurd nonsense you are talking!”
“No, it’s the truth.”
“What, what’s the truth?”
“That I shall die. I have had a dream.”
“A dream?” repeated Vronsky, and instantly he recalled the peasant of
his dream.
“Yes, a dream,” she said. “It’s a long while since I dreamed it. I
dreamed that I ran into my bedroom, that I had to get something there,
to find out something; you know how it is in dreams,” she said, her
eyes wide with horror; “and in the bedroom, in the corner, stood
something.”
“Oh, what nonsense! How can you believe....”
But she would not let him interrupt her. What she was saying was too
important to her.
“And the something turned round, and I saw it was a peasant with a
disheveled beard, little, and dreadful looking. I wanted to run away,
but he bent down over a sack, and was fumbling there with his
hands....”
She showed how he had moved his hands. There was terror in her face.
And Vronsky, remembering his dream, felt the same terror filling his
soul.
“He was fumbling and kept talking quickly, quickly in French, you know:
Il faut le battre, le fer, le broyer, le pétrir.... And in my horror
I tried to wake up, and woke up ... but woke up in the dream. And I
began asking myself what it meant. And Korney said to me: ‘In
childbirth you’ll die, ma’am, you’ll die....’ And I woke up.”
“What nonsense, what nonsense!” said Vronsky; but he felt himself that
there was no conviction in his voice.
“But don’t let’s talk of it. Ring the bell, I’ll have tea. And stay a
little now; it’s not long I shall....”
But all at once she stopped. The expression of her face instantaneously
changed. Horror and excitement were suddenly replaced by a look of
soft, solemn, blissful attention. He could not comprehend the meaning
of the change. She was listening to the stirring of the new life within
her.
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Let's Analyse the Pattern
Physical, purposeful work can heal mental and emotional distress when thinking alone cannot.
Why This Matters
Connect literature to life
This chapter teaches how to identify when physical, purposeful work can heal emotional distress better than thinking or talking.
Practice This Today
This week, notice when you're stuck in mental loops—then ask yourself what your hands can do right now to help someone else or create something tangible.
Now let's explore the literary elements.
Key Quotes & Analysis
"The longer Levin went on mowing, the oftener he experienced those moments of oblivion when his arms no longer seemed to swing the scythe, but the scythe itself his whole body, so conscious and full of life."
Context: As Levin loses himself in the rhythm of mowing hay
This describes the meditative state that comes from repetitive physical work. Levin stops overthinking and becomes fully present in his body and the task at hand, finding peace through complete absorption in the moment.
In Today's Words:
The more he worked, the more he got into that zone where he wasn't thinking about anything else - just completely focused and in the flow.
"He felt no fatigue, only a kind of lightness and joy in his work."
Context: Describing how Levin feels after hours of hard physical labor
Despite the physical demands, the work energizes rather than drains him because it serves his psychological needs. This contradicts the aristocratic assumption that physical labor is purely negative.
In Today's Words:
Even though he was working hard, he felt energized and happy instead of tired.
"The old man straightened his back slowly and looked at Levin with a smile."
Context: When an elderly peasant accepts Levin working alongside them
This simple gesture shows the peasants' natural acceptance of Levin when he proves himself through work rather than words. It represents the breaking down of class barriers through shared effort.
In Today's Words:
The old guy stood up straight and gave Levin a look that said 'you're all right' - he'd earned their respect.
Thematic Threads
Class
In This Chapter
Levin breaks down class barriers by working alongside peasants as an equal
Development
Evolution from earlier chapters where class divisions seemed fixed and natural
In Your Life:
You might find unexpected wisdom and acceptance when you work alongside people you usually see as 'different' from you
Identity
In This Chapter
Levin discovers a new sense of self through manual labor rather than intellectual pursuits
Development
Continuation of his struggle to find authentic identity beyond social expectations
In Your Life:
Your sense of worth might shift when you find value through what you do rather than what you think or own
Personal Growth
In This Chapter
Physical work becomes a pathway to emotional healing and self-understanding
Development
First major breakthrough in Levin's journey toward inner peace
In Your Life:
You might discover that your biggest personal breakthroughs come through action, not reflection
Social Expectations
In This Chapter
Levin rejects aristocratic expectations by choosing peasant work over gentlemanly leisure
Development
Escalation of his rebellion against his social class's prescribed lifestyle
In Your Life:
You might find fulfillment by rejecting what others expect you to want and choosing what actually feeds your soul
You now have the context. Time to form your own thoughts.
Discussion Questions
- 1
What specific changes does Levin notice in his mental state when he starts working in the fields with his hands?
analysis • surface - 2
Why does physical labor succeed in calming Levin's mind when thinking and analyzing his problems had failed?
analysis • medium - 3
Where do you see people today using physical work or hands-on activities to deal with stress, heartbreak, or anxiety?
application • medium - 4
When you're stuck in a cycle of overthinking or emotional pain, what type of physical activity or hands-on work might help you break free?
application • deep - 5
What does Levin's experience reveal about the relationship between our minds and our bodies when we're trying to heal from emotional wounds?
reflection • deep
Critical Thinking Exercise
Map Your Own Therapeutic Labor Toolkit
Create a personal list of physical activities or hands-on tasks that help quiet your racing mind when you're stressed or upset. Think beyond exercise to include cleaning, organizing, cooking, gardening, crafting, or helping others with concrete tasks. Rate each activity based on how accessible it is when you're feeling low and how effective it's been for you in the past.
Consider:
- •Focus on activities that produce visible results or help other people
- •Consider what's realistically available to you during tough times
- •Think about activities that engage your hands and require focus but aren't mentally demanding
Journaling Prompt
Write about a time when you discovered that doing something physical helped you work through an emotional problem. What was the situation, what did you do with your hands, and how did it change your perspective or feelings?
Coming Up Next...
Chapter 105
Levin's newfound peace through physical work is about to be tested when unexpected news arrives from Moscow. His brother Nikolai appears with troubling developments that will force Levin to confront family obligations he's been avoiding.
