The Reassuring Escape — Anna Karenina

At eleven o'clock Kitty tells Levin go, please, go then and call on the Bols; she knows he dines at the club where papa put his name, but morning is for Katavasov and social duty. Levin protests paying calls feels horrible: a complete outsider sits, wastes time, and he would sooner skip dinner than call.

Kitty laughs, insists, and sends him with frock coat for Countess Bola. When he rises she mentions only fifty roubles left; he shows dissatisfaction cough, says Sokolov will sell wheat and borrow on the mill, yet the money in the bank had gone and he cannot quite tell where next installment comes from.

Kitty worries they waste money in Moscow; he consoles without thinking, then remembers confinement near and drives off thinking of Katavasov and Metrov. Tolstoy pairs social shame with hidden financial strain under pregnancy wait.

Kitty laughs at Levin's horror of paying calls and sends him to the Bols with frock coat for Countess Bola. Morning social duty feels worse than club dinner; he would sooner skip dinner than waste time as outsider.

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

Countess Bola's drawing room and Katavasov's study bookend a morning designed to prove Levin can still be a Moscow gentleman.