Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/13

Rh says that the description of the way that Levin and Kitty make use of the initial letters of the words in which they wish to express to each other their mutual love is faithful in its minutest details to the history of Count Tolstoï's own wooing. And undoubtedly many of the experiences of Levin on his estate are also transcripts of Count Tolstoï's own experiences.

Tolstoï, like Levin, sought to reform and to better everything about him, and took part in the Liberal movements of the time; but his schemes came to naught, one after the other, and his nihilism,—for he declares in his confession that he was a Nihilist in the actual meaning of the word,—his nihilism triumphs in bitterness on their ruins. The struggle in Levin's mind and the horror of his despair tempting him also to suicide are marvelously depicted. At length, as in Tolstoï's real life, the muzhik comes to his aid, light illumines his soul, and the work ends in a burst of mystic happiness, a hymn of joy, which he sings to his inmost soul, not sharing it with his beloved wife, though he knows that she knows the secret of his happiness.

Interesting and instructive as this idyllic romance is, the chief power of the novelist is expended in portraying the illicit love of Vronsky and Anna. Its moral is the opposition of duty to passion. It has been said that the love that unites the two protagonists is sincere, deep, almost holy despite its illegality. They were born for each other; it was love at first sight, a love which overleapt all bonds and bounds. But its gratification at the expense of honor brings the inevitable torment, especially to the woman who had sacrificed so much. The agony of remorse, intensified by the mortifications and humiliations caused by her position, unites itself with an almost insane jealousy, product also of the unstable relation in which she is placed. At last the union becomes so irksome, so painful, so hateful, that the only escape from it is in suicide.

Count Tolstoï manages with consummate skill to retain his own respect for the guilty woman. Consequently the reader's love and sympathy for the unhappy woman