Chapter 188 — Anna Karenina

The newly elected marshal and successful party dine with Vronsky, who came partly because he was bored in the country and wanted to show Anna his right to independence while repaying Sviazhsky. Dinner is lively: our marshal jokes, imported wine, telegrams including Stiva's faire jouer le telegraphe to Dolly.

Vronsky is satisfied; he never expected such pleasant tone in the provinces. Then a letter arrives from Vozdvizhenskoe by special messenger: Annie ill, Anna thought of coming herself, tone hostile. Send some answer, that I may know what to do.

The innocent festivities over the election and this gloomy, burdensome love strike him by contrast. The child ill yet she considered travel; he must go, and by the first train that night he set off home. Tolstoy pivots from political triumph to domestic pull.

Imported wine and telegrams lighten dinner until a letter shatters Vronsky's satisfaction. He came partly from boredom and to prove independence from Anna while repaying Sviazhsky; politics purchases absence at private cost.

Tolstoy closes the chapter on that beat without easy moral, only the next consequence waiting.

Anna's misery in the letter reframes every toast; independence has purchased politics at the price of the woman waiting in the country.