The specialist sounds Kitty

Toward the end of winter the Shcherbatskys hold a consultation about Kitty, who is ill and growing worse. A celebrated specialist is sent for and insists on sounding her, holding that a maidenly sense of shame is a relic of barbarism and an insult to him. The old Prince, who does not believe in medicine and is probably the only person who understands the cause, sits through the farce thinking the man a windbag; the doctor, seeing the mother is the head of the house, spreads his pearls before her. Alone with the family doctor, who suggests a tuberculous process and 'some hidden moral cause', the celebrity checks his gold watch, asks whether the bridge over the Yauza is repaired, and prescribes Soden water chiefly because it can do no harm. Kitty, flushed and burning after the ordeal, finds the treatment as absurd as piecing together a smashed vase. Abroad is agreed. She pretends to be cheerful, as she now almost always must.

Part Two opens on professional expertise being wrong at length, which rhymes with the philosophers of Part One and prepares the ground for every institution in the novel. The smashed vase is Kitty's own image and the most accurate diagnosis in the chapter. Tolstoy reserves the truth for the father, who is not consulted.