Chapter 4 — Anna Karenina

Dolly stands at an open bureau in a wrecked bedroom, hair pinned thin on her neck, pretending for the tenth time in three days that she will pack the children and go to her mother. She wants to punish Stiva, but she still loves him, and five children cannot survive on her alone: the baby is sick from bad soup, yesterday they nearly missed dinner. Leaving feels like justice; staying feels like the only way they eat.

Stiva walks in radiant and fresh. Dolly asks what he wants in a voice that sounds nothing like her own. He mentions Anna is coming; she tells him to go away. He sobs, begs forgiveness, and offers the line that detonates everything: cannot nine years of marriage atone for an instant of passion? She hears pity where she needs love, calls him loathsome, and says the word that terrifies her most: stranger. A child cries; her face softens for a second, then she threatens to call the servants, calls him a scoundrel, and slams the door.

Stiva wipes his tears, hears the German watchmaker winding the clock, smiles at his old joke about a man wound up for life to wind watches, and tells himself Matvey is right: she will come round. Dolly, alone again, replays the fight and repeats that even under one roof they are strangers forever. Then Matrona needs an answer about milk and a new cook, and she drowns her grief in dinner plans because the household cannot wait for her pain to finish.