The Club After Calls — Anna Karenina

Levin asks perhaps they are not at home at Countess Bola's; the porter says at home, please walk in and removes his overcoat. How annoying, Levin thinks with a sigh: what did I come for, what have I to say. He performs visit ritual, writes address in handsome book, and feels everyone does it yet remains ashamed.

At the public meeting he meets Sviazhsky and Stiva, discusses fantasia and a trial, and from mental fatigue repeats a foreigner's exile line as punishing a carp by putting it into the water. Then he recalls the witticism is Krilov borrowed through newspaper acquaintance, vexing him several times.

Home with sister-in-law, Kitty is well and cheerful; Levin drove to the club. Tolstoy links social shame, plagiarized cleverness, and relief of male dining after dutiful day.

Levin performs the visit ritual, writes the address in a handsome book, and feels ashamed everyone does it. Public meeting talk of fantasia and trial follows; Moscow visiting is performance without content.

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

Trial talk at the meeting and Sviazhsky's wink confirm Levin is performing citizenship without conviction.

Handsome address book and porter's at home trap him in ritual he despises yet performs like every other gentleman.