The quarrel traced backwards

Tolstoy observes that a household can move only on complete division or loving accord, and that many families stay for years in ruts they hate because they have neither. Anna and Vronsky remain in a hot, dusty Moscow instead of going to Vozdvizhensk, because there is no harmony between them. Her irritation comes from the diminution of his love; she is jealous not of a woman but of the diminution, and hunts an object — coarse women, Society women, and above all the young Princess Sorokina, whom his mother wants him to marry, as he once carelessly told her. She blames him for Karenin's delay, for Moscow, for her loneliness, for being parted from Serezha. Alone in his study at dusk, awaiting his return from a bachelor dinner, she traces yesterday's quarrel back to its harmless start — High Schools for girls, and whether Hannah needs physics — to his word 'unnatural', and round again to jealousy. She orders the trunks brought to pack for the country. Vronsky returns at ten.

An essayistic opening on households that cannot move gives the part its mechanism, then Tolstoy narrows to one woman walking a study at dusk. The quarrel is reconstructed backwards, from the wounding word to its trivial origin, which is how Anna's mind will work for the rest of the novel: the circle closes and starts again, and she is horror-struck to find herself back at the beginning.