Chapter 35 — Anna Karenina

At the Shcherbatskys' end-of-winter consultation, Kitty worsens as cod liver oil, iron, and silver fail. A celebrated young doctor examines her, treating maiden modesty as barbarism and insult; she submits dazed with shame while the prince, who grasps the real cause, listens fuming in the corner. The doctors confer: tuberculous hints, nutrition, nerves; the family doctor mentions moral causes and the celebrity checks his watch and Yauzsky bridge traffic before prescribing travel.

Kitty stands flushed and wasted, feeling doctoring as stupid as mending a broken vase when her heart is broken. She snaps when he repeats the same question a third time; he labels nervous irritability and prescribes harmless waters, then agrees to abroad mostly because the mother wishes it and the case is not hopeless on paper. No one names Vronsky or the ball; the illness gets a medical costume.

Relief follows his exit; mother and daughter pretend cheer about travel preparations while Kitty almost always pretends now. The household breathes as if a verdict has been delivered, though everyone in the room knows the sickness has another name no doctor will write on a chart, and Kitty will carry that unnamed wound abroad until something breaks or heals.