Anna Karenina, Part 3, Chapter 14 summary

What happens

1. Alexey Alexandrovitch arrives home, refuses visitors, and writes a letter insisting that his marriage remain intact.
2. He encloses money and orders delivery to Anna Arkadyevna at the summer villa the next day.
3. Anna’s portrait unsettles him, and he cannot immediately regain his interest in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
4. He prepares proposals for investigations that answer a rival department’s challenge over wasteful irrigation spending.
5. He requests facts from his chief secretary, resumes reading, and goes to bed with his marital trouble seeming less severe.

In this chapter

What to notice

The threat undercuts his satisfaction that the letter contains no harshness. It makes compliance, rather than mutual agreement, central to his proposed reconciliation.

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