The letter refusing Anna her son

In Lydia Ivanovna's boudoir, full of old china and portraits, Karenin opens a New Testament while she changes her dress. Over tea she hands him Anna's letter, and after a long silence he says he does not think he has a right to refuse — who will throw the stone, when he has forgiven her? The Countess answers that there are limits, that she understands immorality but not cruelty, and then produces the argument he has not thought of: the boy believes his mother is dead and prays for her soul; what will he think? She covers her face and prays, then advises unhesitatingly against it and offers to write. Her letter tells Anna that reminding her son of her might lead to questions that could not be answered without implanting a spirit of condemnation, and asks her to accept the refusal in the spirit of Christian love. It achieves the purpose the Countess hides from herself and wounds Anna to the depths. Karenin cannot settle afterwards: his forgiveness, which nobody wanted, burns him with shame, and he wonders whether the fat-calved chamberlains love differently.

The cruellest letter in the novel is written in the language of Christian love by a woman praying between paragraphs, and Tolstoy names the secret purpose she keeps from herself. Karenin's instinct is right and is talked out of him in four exchanges, using a lie she herself told the child. His remorse is precise: what shames him is the forgiveness, which is the one good thing he ever did.