Chapter 148 — Anna Karenina

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. Someone reports Anna and Vronsky arm in arm on the Morsky. Meanwhile Karenin traps an Imperial Council member and explains his new financial project point by point, never pausing for fear the man escape.

His official career has stopped since his wife left, yet he does not see his hopeless position. He writes the first of endless notes on judicial procedure and tells himself that as an unmarried man he serves the Lord more zealously in reform. At the levee he passes ironical eyes and is drawn to Lydia like a plant to the sun. She congratulates him on the ribbon; he shrugs as if indifferent though it satisfies him. She asks after Seryozha; he complains of coldness toward important questions and expounds his education plan, a duty he undertook after Lydia restored him to life.

Lydia says they must speak of something painful: she has received a letter from her, and she is in Petersburg. Karenin shudders, then his face takes deathlike rigidity expressing helplessness. I was expecting it, he says. Lydia looks at him ecstatically, and tears of rapture at the greatness of his soul come into her eyes.