Progress Report Number 2
I’m now on page 817 of 873 in the Bantam Classic softcover edition, copyright March, 1981. Although I’d rather not give too many details about this book because it is so good, I really can’t help telling about the major parts of it. Please do Leo Tolstoy the posthumous favor of reading the whole thing yourself. The realism is so precise. It is more like being transported back in time to Moscow and Petersburg, Russia in the late 19th Century. Tolstoy takes you to the symphony, to the horse races, to gala balls, to the country and farmlands, to the city and its people, the same daily working life struggles that we deal with today, the birth of a first child, the sadness of a divorce, the exhilaration of marrying the person of your dreams. It’s all here, and much more. That sounds too much like a cliché to me, but believe me, you won’t be disappointed in this book, especially if you’ve read War and Peace. And if you haven’t read that book, this one will lead you on to that one.
After Anna told Karenin that she was leaving him, and Karenin told her she could stay with him only if she stopped seeing Vronsky, the real battle of nerves started at Anna’s house. That arrangement proved impossible for Vronsky and Anna. They continued to see each other. Karenin went to see a divorce lawyer, but he never really got things going in that respect. Anna had a baby girl by Vronsky, and Anna almost died in the process. Karenin went to Anna on his knees at her sickbed and forgave her and tried to patch things up. Vronsky saw this and went home and tried to kill himself. Anna got well and was appalled that Vronsky had tried to kill himself, but she decided she would rather have him than Karenin anyway. Vronsky resignd his military commission, and he and Anna left Petersburg, without a divorce from Karenin, and took up residence in Italy where Vronsky began studying painting as a man of leisure. Somehow, Vronsky got very wealthy, and I can’t figure out how. Either he "sold" his military commission for a LOT of money, or his father died and left him a great fortune. I don’t think I missed this in my reading, it just suddenly happend that Vronsky went from counting his paltry pay to having very comfortable resources.
Meanwhile, Levin went back to his country estate and continued writing his book on farming, trying to figure out how he missed the chance of a lifetime by Kitty’s refusal of his marriage proposal. He tried to reconcile himself to living a single life, at first, but then got to thinking there must be another woman for him. He worked among the peasants on his estate on one occasion, dealt with managing his overseers, went hunting with his brother and friends, but never got over Kitty. He saw her riding by one day, and it upset his whole theory of just going off and finding another girl. He took Dolly’s suggestion to heart, and proposed to Kitty again. This time, she gladly accepted, and Tolstoy has given us a wonderful description of all this and the marriage that followed.
Not long after they were married, Kitty and Levin traveled together to attend to Levin’s dying brother, Nicholas. Levin’s other brother, Koznyshov, never attended the bedside of his dying brother, but sent his sympathies nonetheless. Kitty was a regular Florence Nightingale to Nicholas, and Levin was highly complemented by Nicholas on his choice of a wife. After Nicholas died, the Levins had another major life event to face—the birth of their first child. This was a very well-told story in itself. This part, and the part of their early days of married life are excellent reading for anyone who has ever been married--with or without children: all the difficult and awkward moments of getting used to living together.
Copyright 1998, Herman Fontenot
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