Anna Karenina Part 6, Chapter 19 Summary

  • The maid who comes in to assist Dolly is fashionable and expensive-looking. Dolly feels ill at ease in her old, mended clothes.
  • Anna takes Dolly to see Annie, the baby.
  • The nursery is also filled with nice, expensive things. It's clear, though, that Anna is far from being an attentive parent.
  • When Seryozha comes up in the conversation, Anna narrows her eyes again, as she did in the previous chapter.
  • Anna gives Dolly a rundown of all the people in the house.
  • Anna explains that Princess Barbara has a kind heart, despite what Dolly and Oblonsky think of her (i.e., that she's a leech on her wealthy relatives).
  • Sviyazhsky is that friend of Levin's of whom we see so much in Part 3, who seems to live his life completely at odds with his political convictions. He's there because he wants something from Vronsky.
  • Veslovsky is also visiting, as is an estate manager, a doctor, and an architect. Anna gives a crooked smile to Dolly when she mentions that she's heard something about a fight between Levin and Veslovsky, which she can't believe because Veslovsky seems like such an innocent man.