Frou-Frou in her box

At the temporary stable the English trainer advises him not to go in, and he goes in. Passing Makhotin's Gladiator's box he turns away as one avoids reading another's open letter. Frou-Frou is not free from blemish — narrow chest, tapering hindquarters, hind legs bowed in — but has thoroughbred quality in the highest degree, a lean head with sparkling eyes and wide crimson nostrils, and looks as though she would speak if her mouth allowed it. She quietens only when he reaches her head. Her excitement passes into him: he too wants to move and to bite, and it is frightening and joyful. The Englishman calls him 'my lord', asks where he is going, and tells him the chief thing before a race is to keep cool. Rain breaks as he drives to Peterhof. Reading the letters, he is angry at the interference precisely because he knows they are right — that this is not a Society intrigue — and decides for the first time that the lying must end.

Tolstoy spends more words on the mare's conformation than on any description of Anna, and the terms transfer exactly: highly bred, nervous, flawed in build, calm only under his hand. The trainer's warning not to be put out before a race is the chapter's structural irony. Vronsky's anger is diagnosed for him — he resents the family because they are right.