Levin and Kitty - Part 4

"...in her lovely eyes shining with happiness he understood everything he needed to know! And he wrote three letters. But she was reading after his hand, and before he finished writing, she finished it herself and wrote the answer: "Yes."'

Did anyone else get that wonderfully warm, uplifting feeling when finishing the tender and loving moment these two had with the chalk at the card table?

I just read it and feel utterly marvellous.

And it is brilliantly done. The embarrassment, pain and humiliation that Levin has in talking about the refusal begins the exchange of notes. But the fact it is done in initials and not each word written out beautifully brings together their understanding of each other and each others pain since that event in Winter. That they have been through the same sorrows and anguish and just wonderfully come together in such an innocent and tender few moments.

Fantastic Tolstoy

That was a brilliant, cutesy scene by Tolstoy...made me feel happy 4 the couple. TBH, my impression of Kitty was of a way too innocent(and could even go as far as saying gullible) girl that was only looking to get married because her relatives, especially her mother, wanted her to be married. I think it had more to do with what the people in her society thought of her than from her own personal feelings. That's not to say she wasn't attracted to Lenin because she was, yet she also felt madly in "love" with Vronsky, and was even somewhat "flattered" when that distant cousin of hers(forgot his name) comes and visits which results in a jealous Levin in kicking him out.

I felt that their relationship wasn't legitimately based on love. It had to do more with Levin's momentary infatuation of her and even more of his desire to finally fulfill the missing piece of his life which was to start a family.

I love the chalk scene. I think that it is a relationship based on love and it makes a nice contrast to the Anna/Karenin/Vronsky triangle.

It was quite a cute scene. I think it may have been a parlour game, because someone commented they were playing some game. That might explain why they were so good at it. I don't think I could have guessed what all those letters stood for. The scene reminded me of the word games in Emma.

I don't often read The Daily Mail, honest. However, this article on Leo Tolstoy and his attitude to women, in particular his wife, is rather interesting. I have read a couple of posts suggest that Tolstoy modelled Levin on himself, in which case I pity poor Kitty. *SPOILER* There was a bit in Anna Karenina in which Levin gives his diaries to Kitty before his wedding. Kitty is very upset by them, because they contained accounts of his sexual encounters. I thought this was slightly odd. The way I read it, these were encounters in Levin's youth, which he felt rather ashamed about. It seems Leo Tolstoy did the same thing: let his fiance read his diaries before their wedding, only his diaries did not contain just a few youthful encounters, but twenty years of relentless shagging with prostitutes, peasants and servants, plus a fair bit a drinking and gambling. Looks like Levin was rather a sanitized version of Tolstoy.