Anna Karenina Ch. 125: Chapter 125

Summary

Part Five opens with the princess insisting the wedding cannot occur before Lent, yet mourning customs and trousseau delays force compromise. She splits the trousseau into immediate and later portions since the young couple will leave for the country after the wedding.

Levin remains in ecstatic passivity, agreeing to everything others arrange. Kitty refuses Stiva's idea of going abroad and insists their home will be in the country where Levin's work lives. Stiva then discovers Levin has not been to confession in nine years and arranges the sacrament.

Levin finds church ceremonies painfully hypocritical yet cannot treat them as empty form either. He goes through liturgy while thinking of Kitty's hand, receives absolution, and returns relieved the ordeal is over without lying. The chapter ends with him comparing his happiness to a trained dog that finally understands the trick.

Lent and mourning customs delay the wedding while Levin agrees to everything in ecstatic passivity. Confession tortures him with hypocrisy he cannot embrace or reject; absolution leaves him relieved and comparing happiness to a dog that finally learned the trick.

Kitty chooses country over Stiva's abroad scheme; Levin's confession ordeal leaves him comparing grace to a trained dog, relieved the lie was not spoken even when the rite felt hollow.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Living With Ritual You Do Not Fully Believe

Levin confesses because marriage requires it, not because faith returned. He is neither hypocrite nor believer, but something many readers recognize.

Literature gives dignity to that middle state and warns that relief after compliance is not the same as spiritual clarity.

Coming Up in Chapter 126

Levin's wedding day will bring comic chaos and formal splendor in the chapters ahead. On the wedding morning Levin dines with bachelor friends who tease him about losing freedom, bear hunts, and matrimony. Katavasov jokes that half Levin's mind deceives itself while the other half justifies the deceit, yet Levin insists he is glad to lose freedom because happiness is in loving Kitty..

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Chapter 125

Part Five opens with the princess insisting the wedding cannot occu...

Princess Shtcherbatskaya considered that it was out of the question for the wedding to take place before Lent, just five weeks off, since not half the trousseau could possibly be ready by that time. But she could not but agree with Levin that to fix it for after Lent would be putting it off too late, as an old aunt of Prince Shtcherbatsky’s was seriously ill and might die, and then the mourning would delay the wedding still longer. And therefore, deciding to divide the trousseau into two parts—a larger and smaller trousseau—the princess consented to have the wedding before…

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Critical Thinking Exercise

10 minutes

Track the Hoops

List each institutional requirement Levin meets in this chapter. Note who arranges it, how he feels, and whether his inner state changes.

Consider:

•Include trousseau timing
•Include country preparations
•Include confession and church

Journaling Prompt

Write about a required ritual you performed while unsure what you believed.

Master this chapter. Complete your experience

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Chapter 125

Summary