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Chapter 147 — Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina - Chapter 147

Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina

Chapter 147

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Study guide
By Arvin Lioanag, Founder & Editor. Reviewed against source text (editorial standards). Last updated 13 September 2026.

Summary

Countess Lydia Ivanovna married young a wealthy, jovial, dissipated rake who abandoned her within two months and met her affection with sarcasm ever after. She stopped loving him but never stopped loving someone: priests, journalists, Slavophiles, Komissarov, ministers, and finally Karenin, whom she took under special protection after his trouble. She loves his lofty soul, weary eyes, drawling voice, and soft white hands with swollen veins. She dresses for him, blushes when he speaks kindly, and writes two or three letters a day because correspondence affords refinement and mystery their interviews lack.

Learning that Anna and Vronsky are in Petersburg, Lydia works through friends to keep Karenin from meeting them. When an adjutant reports they will leave tomorrow, she begins to calm down. Then Anna's French letter arrives on thick scented paper, begging permission to see Seryozha once before departure and applying to Lydia rather than Karenin so as not to cause him pain. Everything in the letter exasperates Lydia: the contents, the allusion to magnanimity, and its free and easy tone.

Lydia orders that there is no answer and immediately writes Karenin to meet her at the levee about a grave and painful subject, tea at her house as he likes it, urgent, with a line about the cross and strength to bear it. Anna's request will be buried before Karenin even reads it.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Skill: Spotting Gatekeepers Who Refuse to Answer

Some people manage crises by controlling who gets a response. Anna writes Lydia Ivanovna a restrained plea to see Seryozha once, and Lydia orders no answer while summoning Karenin to her house instead.

When a reasonable request meets deliberate silence, ask who benefits from keeping the door closed.

Coming Up in Chapter 148

At the levee Petersburg will gossip about Karenin's ribbon while Lydia Ivanovna prepares to tell him Anna is in town. The levee closes with gossip about honors and appointments. People joke that Karenin assists the ecclesiastical department, call him pleased as a brass farthing in his new Alexander Nevsky ribbon, and whisper that Countess Lydia Ivanovna is jealous of his wife..

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Original text
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Chapter 147

Countess Lydia Ivanovna married young a wealthy, jovial, dissipated...

The Countess Lidia Ivanovna had, as a very young and sentimental girl, been married to a wealthy man of high rank, an extremely good-natured, jovial, and extremely dissipated rake. Two months after marriage her husband abandoned her, and her impassioned protestations of affection he met with a sarcasm and even hostility that people knowing the count’s good heart, and seeing no defects in the sentimental Lidia, were at a loss to explain. Though they were divorced and lived apart, yet whenever the husband met the wife, he invariably behaved to her with the same malignant irony, the cause of which…

Public-domain chapter text, formatted for reading.

Critical Thinking Exercise

10 minutes

Map the Gatekeeper

List what Lydia loves in Karenin, what Anna asks for, and what Lydia does instead of answering. Who gains from each step?

Consider:

  • •Include weary eyes
  • •Include no answer
  • •Include two or three letters

Journaling Prompt

Write about a time a third person controlled access when you needed a direct reply.

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Lessons from Anna Karenina

Theme-by-theme analyses that connect this book to modern life skills.

  • Balancing Passion and Responsibility

    Follow Seryozha's birthday visit, Karenin's public face, and the divorce that never arrives, and count what desire costs other people.

    6 chapters·Explore Analysis
  • Finding Authentic Meaning

    Walk the mowing with Levin, then sit through Kitty's imperfect household, and see a life that does not need an audience.

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Deep diving the literary elements.

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Study guides, themes, and the full library.More ways to read Anna Karenina: study guides, themes, and the wider library.

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Social Class & Status
Moral Dilemmas & Ethics
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