Serezha, and the game of railways

Korney announces Sergey Alexeyich, and Oblonsky takes a moment to realise it is Serezha. Karenin asks him not to mention the mother: the boy was so ill after that unexpected interview that they feared for his life, and sea-bathing and school have restored him. A handsome lad in a blue jacket and long trousers comes in boldly, recognises his uncle, blushes and turns away as if offended, hands over his school report, and escapes like a bird from a cage. A year has passed; he has learned to drive off the memories of his mother as shameful, fit for girls and not for a chum, and to accept that it is his fate to stay with his father. On the stairs, out of his father's hearing, he explains the game of railways — two passengers on a form, one standing as guard, the rest harnessed by hands or belts — and says it takes courage to be the guard. Asked whether he remembers his mother, he says no, and hangs his head scarlet. The tutor later finds him crying and is told to leave him alone.

The boy has done what the adults could not — he has adapted — and Tolstoy shows the cost in one denial and a fit of crying on the stairs. Anna's whole hope of the divorce is disposed of in a paragraph before anyone mentions it. The game of railways, played through all the rooms with the doors opened beforehand, is the chapter's unforced and terrible image.