Chapter 171 — Anna Karenina

Next day Levin visits Veslovsky's room, walks the garden and stable, exercises on parallel bars, then enters the drawing room where Veslovsky tells Kitty at the samovar what a pity ladies miss shooting delights. Levin sees something not nice in the guest's smile and Kitty's flushed disturbed look while the princess presses Moscow rooms and confinement patterns that jar Levin like wedding trivialities once did.

Stiva jokes Heavy is the cap of Monomach, hinting at Levin's agitation beyond the princess talk. Veslovsky and Kitty resume last night's debate on Anna and whether love outranks worldly considerations; she cannot cut it off without seeming guilty to Levin. When she asks Dolly about Masha with a guilty face and Veslovsky waits indifferently, Levin reads hypocrisy and leaves claiming the mechanician came.

Kitty runs after him: We can't go on like this; misery. He fears a scene before servants, then in the garden away from the governess lesson they repeat we can't go on like this on a lime tree seat. He demands whether Veslovsky's tone was unseemly; she says yes but she is not to blame and cries how happy they were before he came. The gardener later sees them pass with comforted and radiant faces.