Chapter 44 — Anna Karenina

Nothing special happens outwardly, which is exactly the horror. Anna keeps going to Princess Betsy's and meets Vronsky everywhere; Karenin sees it and cannot act. Every attempt at open discussion hits a barrier of amused perplexity, as if Anna cannot understand why he would speak seriously at all or why society's whispers should matter to a woman who has found her real life elsewhere and treats his concern as a category error.

A powerful statesman at work, he waits like an ox with bent head for a blow he feels suspended above him. Each day he prepares kindness, tenderness, persuasion; each night the spirit of deceit that possesses her seems to possess him too, and he speaks in the jeering tone he uses to mock anyone who would say what he means, including himself.

In that voice, the necessary words become impossible. The marriage continues its visible routine, dinners and committees and correct appearances, while inner life rots in place and both partners perform a normality neither believes, waiting for the first open breach. From this stalemate the affair will soon move from glance to act, but for now they live inside the lie that nothing has changed at all.