Chapter 152 — Anna Karenina

Anna and Vronsky arrive in Petersburg and take separate hotel floors: he below, she above with the baby, nurse, and maid. Vronsky tells his brother he treats Anna as his wife, hopes to divorce and marry her, and demands family accept her on equal terms. If the world disapproves, I don't care, he says, but relations who want him must accept his wife.

Vronsky wrongly believes modern progress has softened society. He tests whether friends will receive them and learns the world stays open for him and closed for Anna. Tolstoy compares it to crossed legs: you can sit that way indefinitely if you know you may shift, but if you must stay still, cramps come. In the cat-and-mouse game of Petersburg, hands raised for him were dropped to bar the way for Anna.

Cousin Betsy greets him warmly until she hears divorce is not settled; she visits Anna ten minutes, priding herself on courage, and leaves with cold gossip about starchy people. Sister-in-law Varya admits affection but refuses to receive Anna at home or rehabilitate her: I can't raise her, she says, with daughters growing up and a husband's career to protect. Vronsky must live like a stranger in his own city, and he notices a new mood in Anna: loving, then cold, hiding something he cannot read.