Waiting in Moscow

Two months in Moscow, and the calculated date has long passed with no sign; the doctor, the midwife, Dolly, the Princess and above all Levin are anxious, and Kitty alone is calm and happy, feeling the child beginning to live its own life. The one thing that spoils it is that her husband is not himself in town: on the estate he is unhurried and always occupied, here he is restless and has nothing to do. Cards, the club, Oblonsky's sort of gaiety, Society, the Alines and Nadines talk at home, the book he has talked about until his ideas are confused — nothing fits. But they never quarrel in Moscow. Then Kitty meets Vronsky at her godmother's: she flushes for a few seconds, recovers before her father has finished speaking, smiles at his joke about 'our parliament', and does not look at him again until he bows. Levin blushes far more when told, then questions her, is satisfied, and resolves to be as friendly as possible with Vronsky next time.

Kitty passes the test Part Six set, and does it by feeling her husband's unseen presence above her — the marriage working as an internalised witness rather than a restraint. Tolstoy has her wish he could have watched through a crack, which is the right instinct. The account of what Levin might do in Moscow is a list of doors closing.