On the Eve · Chapter
III explained
This chapter provides background on Anna Vassilyevna Stahova and her husband Nikolai Artemyevitch Stahov, detailing their marriage, Nikolai's infidelity with Augustina Christianovna, and Anna's passive melancholy.
What happens
This chapter provides background on Anna Vassilyevna Stahova and her husband Nikolai Artemyevitch Stahov, detailing their marriage, Nikolai's infidelity with Augustina Christianovna, and Anna's passive melancholy. It also introduces Pavel Shubin, a distant cousin and aspiring sculptor taken under Anna's care, and describes his artistic talent and erratic education.
Themes in this chapter
Class and Social Hierarchy
The chapter details the social aspirations and marriage strategies of the Stahovs, including Nikolai's pursuit of a wealthy heiress and the distinctions between rich and poor relations.
Gender Roles and Autonomy
Anna Vassilyevna is portrayed as a passive, emotionally fragile wife who endures her husband's infidelity without direct confrontation, illustrating limited female autonomy in 19th-century Russian marriage.
Art and Creativity
Shubin's artistic talent and his rejection of formal academic training highlight the tension between creative passion and conventional education.
Characters to notice
- Anna Vassilyevna Stahova
Described as a thin, emotional woman whose health was ruined by childbirth; she endures her husband's infidelity with silent complaint and has taken in her cousin Shubin.
- Nikolai Artemyevitch Stahov
Anna's husband, a retired guardsman who married for money, is bored at home, maintains a relationship with a German widow, and prides himself on being a 'frondeur.'
- Pavel Yakovlitch Shubin
A distant cousin of Anna, a talented but erratic sculptor who left medical school to pursue art; he lives in a room in the Stahovs' lodge.
- Elena Nikolaevna Stahova
Mentioned as the daughter whose birth ruined Anna's health; she is briefly noted as having been handed over to a governess.
- Augustina Christianovna
Nikolai's German mistress, to whom he gave a pair of grey horses from Anna's stable.
- Prince Ardalion Tchikurasov
Anna's guardian after her parents' death, who placed her in boarding school and later hosted balls where she met Nikolai.
Key passages
“Her husband’s infidelity wounded Anna Vassilyevna deeply; she had been specially hurt by his once giving his German woman, on the sly, a pair of grey horses out of her (Anna Vassilyevna’s) own stable.”
Anna was deeply hurt by her husband's unfaithfulness, especially when he secretly gave her own grey horses to his German mistress.
Illustrates the personal betrayal and material loss Anna suffers due to Nikolai's affair.
“Nikolai Artemyevitch’s frondeurism consisted in saying, for instance, when he heard the word nerves: 'And what do you mean by nerves?' or if someone alluded in his presence to the discoveries of astronomy, asking: 'And do you believe in astronomy?'”
Nikolai's rebellious attitude showed itself in skeptical questions like 'What do you mean by nerves?' or 'Do you believe in astronomy?'
Highlights Nikolai's self-satisfied but shallow intellectual posturing.