The golden bridge, written in French

Home in Petersburg, Karenin orders that no one be admitted, lights six candles, cracks his fingers and writes to his wife in French, in the plural you. Whatever her actions, he does not consider himself justified in severing bonds a Higher Power has united; a family must not be broken up by the caprice, perversity or even crime of one party; he is convinced she repents; she is to return to Petersburg not later than Tuesday, and if not, she can foresee what awaits her and her son. He is pleased with the letter, especially with remembering to enclose money, and with having provided a golden bridge for her return. Then he sits under her portrait — the black lace, the white hand with rings, intolerably bold — shudders and turns away. Unable to hold his interest in the Eugubine Tables, he takes up the far more absorbing matter of the Zaraysk irrigation question, plans four demands including a commission on the subject races, and writes a summary with a flush of animation. At eleven he goes to bed, and the thing with his wife no longer looks so gloomy.

The longest stretch of bureaucratic detail in the novel is placed directly after a marriage ends, and the length is the argument: this is what actually occupies him. Tolstoy gives the irrigation scheme a real history, a real injustice and a family of musical daughters living off it, so the satire cuts both ways. The letter's golden bridge carries a threat against the child.