What Is Varenka's Secret?

Reflections on Part Two of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina

We just finished reading and discussing the second half of Book Two of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.

At the end of our conversation, my friend Carl E. Scott reminded me that at the end of Part 1: Rousseau and the Romantic Project of his book Love and Friendship (see also here, here, here, and here), Allan Bloom (not Harold), student of Leo Strauss, analyzes and evaluates Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. I need to fish for Love and Friendship - a book that I read long ago when my dad recommended it to me - in my library because it is a great supplement for understanding Tolstoy.

Part Two of Anna Karenina is even better than Part One, which to me is already a sign that this is a great novel. In this second half of Part Two there is very little mention of Levin and Oblansky, but Tolstoy leads us toward a deeper understanding of the internal and external characteristics of Anna, Vronsky, Count Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, Kitty, and the Shtcherbatskys in particular. Tolstoy also introduces us to a few new characters, including Mademoiselle Varenka and Madame Stahl.

The horse racing scenes are vivid and unforgettable, foreshadowing the romantic but tragic confrontation between Vronsky and the pregnant Anna, followed by the story of Kitty’s healing in Carlsbad.

We had a great discussion about differences and similarities between Oblansky’s marriage and Karenin’s marriage, Kitty’s love and admiration for Anna and Kitty’s love and admiration for Varenka, and the role of children in the novel. I wondered what Kitty’s initial attraction toward Anna’s charisma and Kitty’s initial attraction toward Varenka’s religion might tell us about Tolstoy’s own thoughts on religion, and I wondered what role Anna’s son might play in the rest of the novel. It was also curious that Varenka alluded to “the most important thing” in life and relationships, but Book Two ends without any explicit definition of what that thing is.

What do you think that “most important thing” is? What is Varenka’s secret?