(During a tiff with his wife.) He was offended for the first instant, but the very same second he felt that he could not be offended by her, that she was himself. During that first instant he felt as a man feels when, having suddenly received a violent blow from behind, he turns round, angry and eager to avenge himself, to look for his antagonist, and finds that he has merely struck himself accidentally, and there is no one to be angry with, and he must endure and soothe the pain (ibid.).
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To remain under such undeserved reproach was a wretched situation, but to make her suffer by justifying himself was worse still. Like a man half-awake in an agony of pain, he craved to tear out and fling away the aching part, and upon awaking, felt that the aching part was himself, (ibid.).
. . . the saintly image of Madame Stahl which she [Kitty] had carried for a whole month in her heart, vanished, never to return, just as a human figure seen in some clothing carelessly thrown on a chair vanishes the moment one's eye unravels the pattern of its folds (Part two, chapter 34).
He [Karenin] experienced a feeling like a man who, after calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge was dismantled, and that there was an abyss below (Part two, chapter 8).
He experienced a feeling such as a man might have, returning home and finding his own house locked up (Part two, chapter 9).
Like an ox with head bent, submissively he awaited the blow [of the obukh] which he felt was lifted over him (Part two, chapter 10).
He [Vronski] very quickly perceived that though society was open to him personally, it was closed to Anna. Just as in the parlor game of cat and mouse [with one person in a circle of players and the other outside], the linked hands raised for him were lowered to bar the way for her (Part five, chapter 28).
He could not go anywhere without running into Anna's husband. So at least it seemed to Vronski, just as it seems to a man with a sore finger continually, as though on purpose, grazing his sore finger on everything (ibid.).
N AME S
In speaking to a person, the most ordinary and neutral form of address among cultured Russians is not the surname but the first name and patronymic, Ivan Ivanovich (meaning "Ivan, son of Ivan") or Nina Ivanovna (meaning "Nina, daughter of Ivan"). The peasant may hail another as "Ivan" or "Vanka," but otherwise only kinsmen or childhood friends, or people who in their youth served in the same regiment, etc., use first names in addressing each other. I have known a number of Russians with whom I have been on friendly terms for two or three decades but whom I would not dream of addressing otherwise than Ivan Ivanovich or Boris Petrovich as the case may be; and this is why the ease with which elderly Americans become Harrys and Bills to each other after a couple of highballs strikes formal Ivan Ivanovich as impossibly absurd.
A man of parts whose full name is, say, Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov (meaning "Ivan, son of Ivan, surnamed Ivanov"; or in American parlance, "Mr. Ivan Ivanov, Jr.") will be Ivan Ivanovich (often contracted to "Ivan Ivanych": "y" pronounced as "u" in
"nudge") to his acquaintances and to his own servants; barin (master) or "Your Excellency" to servants in general; "Your Excellency" also to an inferior in office if he happens to occupy a high bureaucratic position; Gospodin (Mr.) Ivanov to a wrathful superior—or to somebody who in desperation has to address him but does not know his first name and patronymic; Ivanov to his teachers at high school; Vanya to his relatives and close childhood friends; Jean to a simpering female cousin; Vanyusha or Vanyushenka to his fond mother or wife; Vanechka Ivanov, or even Johnny Ivanov, to the beau monde if he is a sportsman or a rake, or merely a good-natured, elegant nonentity. This Ivanov may belong to a noble but not very old family since surnames derived from first names imply comparatively short genealogical trees. On the other hand, if this Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov belongs to the lower classes—is a servant, a peasant, or a young merchant—he may be called Ivan by his superiors, Vanka by his comrades, and Ivan Ivanych ("Mr. Johnson") by his meek kerchiefed wife; and if he is an old retainer, he may be addressed as Ivan Ivanych in sign of deference by the family he has served for half a century; and a respectable old peasant or artisan may be addressed by the weighty "Ivanych."
In the matter of titles, Prince Oblonski or Count Vronski or Baron Shilton meant in old Russia exactly what a prince, a count, or a baron would mean in continental Europe, prince corresponding roughly to an English duke, count to earl, baron to baronet. It should be noted, however, that titles did not imply any kinship to the Tsar's family, the Romanovs (the Tsar's 128
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immediate relatives were called Grand Dukes) and that many families of the oldest nobility never had a title. Lyovin's nobility was older than Vronski's. A man of comparatively unglamorous origin but a favorite of the Court might receive the title of Count from the Tsar and it seems likely that Vronski's father had been ennobled that way.
To force upon a foreign reader the use of a dozen names, mostly unpronounceable to him, for the designation of one person is both unfair and unnecessary. In the appended list I have given full names and titles as employed by Tolstoy in the Russian text; but in my revised translation* I have ruthlessly simplified addresses and allowed a patronymic to appear only when the context absolutely demanded it. (See also Notes 6, 21, 30, 68, 73, 79, 89.)
A complete list of characters that appear, or are mentioned, in part one of Anna Karenin (note stress accents and the revised spelling of names):
The Oblônski-Shcherbâtski Group
Oblonski, Prince Stepan Arkâdievich ("son of Arkâdi"); anglicized diminutive of first name: Steve; aged 34; of ancient nobility; formerly (till 1869) served in Tver, his home town, a city north of Moscow; is now (1872) head of one of the several government bureaus in Moscow; office hours: from around 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 3 p.m. to around 5 p.m.; may also be seen on official business at his residence; has a house in Moscow and a country estate (his wife's dowry), Ergushôvo, twenty miles from Lyovin's estate Pokrôvskoe (presumably in the Province of Tula, south of Moscow, Central Russia).
His wife, Dolly (anglicized diminutive of Dâria; the Russian diminutive is Dâsha or Dâshenka); full name: Princess Dâria Aleksandrovna ("daughter of Aleksandr") (wife of) Oblônski, born Princess Shcherbâtski; aged 33 ; has been married nine years in part one.
Their five children (in February 1872), three girls and two boys: the eldest (aged eight) Tanya (diminutive of Tatiâna); Grisha (diminutive of Grigori); Mâsha (Maria); Lili (Elizaveta); and baby Vâsya (Vasilf). A sixth child is to be born in March, and two children have died, making eight in all. In part three when they go to their country place Ergushôvo in late June 1872, the baby is three months old.
Dolly's brother, unnamed, drowned around 1860 in the Baltic; and two sisters: Natalia (French form: Nathalie), married to Arséni Lvov, a diplomat and later an official at the Palace Offices (they have two boys, one called Mfsha, diminutive of Mihaïl); and Kitty (anglicized diminutive of Ekaterina; Russian diminutive: Katya, Katenka), aged 18.
Prince Nikolây Shcherbâtski, a cousin.
Countess Maria Nordston, a young married woman, Kitty's friend.
Prince Aleksândr Shcherbâtski, a Moscow nobleman, and his wife ("the old Princess") are the parents of Dolly, Nathalie, and Kitty.