Anna Karenina · Chapter
The Agony of Waiting explained
Levin endures the agonizing wait during Kitty's labor.
What happens
Levin endures the agonizing wait during Kitty's labor. He desperately tries to rouse the doctor and get opium, encountering indifference from servants and a chemist. Time distorts for him as he alternates between moments of mundane conversation and intense, prayerful suffering at Kitty's bedside, feeling utterly helpless.
Themes in this chapter
Family and Domesticity
The intense, shared family experience of childbirth, with all its anxiety, support, and profound emotional upheaval, is the central focus.
Search for Meaning
Levin, despite his alienation from religion, turns to simple, trusting prayer. The experience is described as a 'loophole' in ordinary life offering a glimpse of the 'sublime,' elevating his soul beyond reason.
Characters to notice
- Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin
In a state of extreme anxiety and distorted perception of time during Kitty's labor; feels helpless, prays constantly, and is frustrated by the indifference of others.
- Lizaveta Petrovna
The midwife with a firm, resolute face who directs Levin and reassures the family.
- Princess Shcherbatskaya
Kitty's mother, flushed and overwrought, trying to hold back tears and comfort Levin.
- Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya
Present to support the family, tries to get Levin to eat and leads him out of the room.
- Prince Shcherbatsky
Seen walking up and down the hall with a frowning face, sharing in the family's tension.
Key passages
“All the ordinary conditions of life, without which one can form no conception of anything, had ceased to exist for Levin.”
The routine of daily life completely dissolved for Levin during the crisis.
Highlights the transformative, disorienting power of the intense personal event.
“that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loopholes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime.”
Both profound sorrow and profound joy break through normal existence, revealing a higher reality.
Connects the experience of birth to the earlier death of Nikolay, framing both as transcendent moments.
“"These people have no conscience," thought Levin. "Combing his hair, while we’re dying!"”
Levin is furious at the doctor's mundane preparations amid his own crisis.
Illustrates Levin's extreme anxiety and his perception of others' casual indifference.