Chapter 3 — Anna Karenina

Stiva finishes dressing, scents himself, and walks into breakfast feeling clean, fragrant, and physically at ease even though his marriage is in ruins. Grooming works faster than guilt. A merchant's letter about a forest on Dolly's land stings twice: he must sell it, but cannot raise the topic until they reconcile, and he hates the suspicion that money might be what moves him toward his wife.

He skims office papers, then a damp liberal paper whose politics settled in him like a hat nobody asked him to choose. Each plank fits his life with suspicious ease: debt needs reform; a miserable marriage needs reconstructing; long church services need explaining away. He even enjoys telling plain men that if they boast of noble blood they should not stop before the monkey. The leading articles usually fog his brain pleasantly, but Matrona's household warning and the thought that Dolly has not slept blunt the usual ironies. He smiles after coffee and good digestion, then the smile snaps him back to what he was trying not to feel.

Tanya and Grisha arrive with their toy train. He hugs his favorite, asks lightly if Dolly is cheerful, and watches Tanya blush because she knows he knows the answer. Sweets, a walk with Miss Hoole, Matvey delaying a widow so Stiva can finish his coffee: he still hears the impossible petition to the end and writes a fluent note that costs him almost nothing. At the door he realizes he forgot only what he meant to forget. His inner voice says going to her now means deceit, that he cannot make her lovable again or himself immune to love, and that lying is against his nature. He tells himself it cannot go on like this, lights a cigarette, and opens her bedroom door anyway.