Anna Karenina · Chapter
Chapter XXXII explained
Anna returns home to Petersburg.
What happens
Anna returns home to Petersburg. She is greeted with intense joy by her son Seryozha, though her idealized image of him gives way to a more realistic, yet still charming, appreciation. Countess Lidia Ivanovna visits, and Anna, for the first time, sees the countess's self-righteousness and hypocrisy clearly. After other social calls, Anna is left alone and reflects on the journey and Vronsky's attentions, dismissing them as unimportant and resolving not to mention them to her husband, feeling restored to her habitual, resolute self.
Themes in this chapter
Hypocrisy and Social Pretense
Anna's fresh perception of Countess Lidia Ivanovna reveals the hypocrisy of performing Christian charity while being consumed by anger, pettiness, and personal intrigue.
Family and Domesticity
Anna's return to her son and home highlights the complex, sometimes disappointing, reality of domestic bonds versus idealized memories, and the solace they can provide.
Characters to notice
- Anna Arkadyevna Karenina
Returns home, experiences a mix of disappointment and physical joy in her son's presence, begins to see the hypocrisy in her social circle (like Lidia Ivanovna), and rationalizes away Vronsky's advances, deciding not to speak of them to Karenin.
- Seryozha Karenin
Desperately joyful at his mother's return. His simple, loving presence provides Anna with moral soothing, though she initially finds him less perfect than her memory.
- Countess Lidia Ivanovna
Visits Anna, speaking of her philanthropic and religious endeavors with a tone of self-important martyrdom, revealing the pettiness and intrigue surrounding her work. Anna perceives her as always angry despite her Christian aims.
- Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenin
Mentioned as being at the ministry. Anna recalls his past, dismissive response to a suitor's attention, which reinforces her decision not to mention Vronsky.
Key passages
““To speak of it to my husband would be unnecessary and out of the question. To speak of it would be to attach importance to what has no importance.””
Anna decides that mentioning Vronsky's behavior to Karenin would be pointless and would only give weight to an insignificant matter.
Shows Anna's attempt to rationalize and minimize the encounter, reinforcing social conventions of marital discretion.
““It was all the same before, of course; but why was it I didn’t notice it before?””
Anna wonders why she is only now seeing the flaws in Countess Lidia Ivanovna that were always present.
Marks a shift in Anna's perception, a new clarity about the hypocrisy in her social world.