Chapter 111 — Anna Karenina

Over soup Pestsov presses Karenin on civilization and population; Karenin answers languidly that higher development alone justifies influence. Sergey Ivanovitch and Pestsov dispute classics against science until Koznishev calls classical studies little pills with anti-nihilist medicinal property, and Turovtsin roars with relief at something to laugh at.

Pestsov turns to women's education and rights; Karenin warns that education gets dangerous when confused with emancipation. Sergey Ivanovitch reframes rights as duties; Stiva sympathizes with oppressed womanhood while thinking of Masha Tchibisova. Dolly breaks in sharply that a girl without family has usually abandoned duties elsewhere, suspecting her husband's angle.

The old prince jokes about long hair and wit, compares wet-nurse rights to women's offices, and mourns that the Foundling will not hire him. Turovtsin drops asparagus into the sauce laughing. Serious debate and comic deflation share the same table while Karenin, who has mailed divorce papers, assents calmly to questions about women's fitness for public life.

Karenin assents to debates about women's fitness for office while divorce papers travel toward a lawyer who will treat adultery like merchandise. Dolly's sharp interruption of Stiva's sympathy for oppressed womanhood shows how personal knowledge pierces table philosophy.

Pestsov and Sergey Ivanovitch trade epigrams while Karenin, who has just mailed divorce instructions, nods as though women's education were the only crisis in the room.