Last night, I finished part two of Anna Karenina. To sum up: Anna and Vronsky have fallen in love. Kitty is recuperating from her disappointment with Vronsky, and her erstwhile suitor Levin is still on his country estate trying to forget her. Anna’s husband is growing increasingly suspicious of his wife’s attentions and attitudes towards Vronsky.
Two things are interesting me at this point. The first is the lack of the middle class. The second is, as it usually is in a nineteenth century novel, the power of reputation. So, first, the class thing. Most of the books I’ve read from the nineteenth century were written by Brits and Americans and I can’t recall a book that wasn’t about members of the middle class. Even A Tale of Two Cities had middle-class characters. It’s weird that you don’t notice the class thing until you read a book where almost all the characters are nobility, servants, or serfs. I know that this book is meant to be about relationships, love, disappointment, etc., but having just read Fitzpatrick’s War, I can’t help but think about what I know about Russian history. If I remember right, Russia at the end of the nineteenth century was starting to head towards the 1917 revolution, and the early Bolsheviks, etc., were starting to grow. A couple of the characters, Levin and Stiva, talk about current politics, but they only briefly mention the recent attempt at a parliament. Though they’ve appeared in the narrative, we don’t get to hear the voice of the lower classes because it isn’t that sort of a book. It’s kind of weird to read something about Russia by a Russian that isn’t about politics and economics.
So, on to the second thing: reputation. As it becomes more obvious that something is going on between Anna and Vronsky, Anna’s husband, Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, feels the need to have a serious talk with his wife. He claims that he’s not motivated by jealousy, and it seems like he’s really more worried about what other people in their social circle are going to think. Tolstoy also lets us eavesdrop on some of their acquaintances and we learn that people are already starting to gossip about Anna and Vronsky. Alexei Karenin feels the need to remind Anna of how she appears to others, and of the front she needs to present in order to maintain their reputation. It’s remarkable how Anna’s behavior towards Vronsky–lingering glances, avoiding old friends and spending time with new people, etc.–has affected her standing in her social circle and set tongues to wagging.
On a more humorous note, there’s an episode with Kitty Shcherbatsky. Kitty goes off to a spa in Germany after Vronsky dumps her. While there, she meets a very pious woman, Mme Stahl, who strikes her as a very religious woman who is seriously ill. Mme Stahl and her adopted daughter Varenka teach Kitty about how to become more serene. But when Kitty’s father arrives, he completely destroys Kitty’s image of Mme Stahl by making a joke that Mme Stahl in in a wheelchair simply because she has short legs and a bad figure. After that, whether it’s true or not, Kitty can’t get her father’s remarks out of her head and wonders if they’re true.