His elder brother, Aleksandr (French: Alexandre), living in St. Petersburg, Commander of a Regiment of the Guards, father of at least two daughters (the elder is called Marie) and of a newborn boy; his wife's name is Varya (diminutive of Varvara), nee Princess Chirkov, daughter of a Decembrist. Keeps a dancing-girl.
Countess Vronski, mother of Aleksandr and Aleksey, has an apartment or house in Moscow and a country estate nearby, reached from a station (Obiralovka), a few minutes from Moscow on the Nizhegorodski line.
Aleksey Vronski's servants: a German valet and an orderly; old Countess Vronski's maid and her butler Lavrenti, both traveling with her back to Moscow from Petersburg; and an old footman of the Countess who comes to meet her at the Moscow station.
Ignatov, a Moscow pal of Vronski.
Lieutenant 'Pierre' Petritski, one of Vronski's best friends, staying in Vr6n-ski's Petersburg flat.
Baroness Shflton, a married lady, Pierre's mistress.
Captain Kamerovski, a comrade of Petn'tski's.
Various acquaintances mentioned by Petritski: fellow officers Berkoshev and Buzulukov; a woman, Lora; Fertingof and Mileev, her lovers; and a Grand Duchess. (Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses were Romanovs, i.e., relatives of the Tsar.)
Lydvin, Konstantin Dmitrich ('son of Dmitri'), scion of a noble Moscow family older than the Count Vronski's; Tolstoy's representative in the world of the book; aged 32; has an estate, Pokrovskoe, in the 'Karazinski' District and another in the Seleznyovski District, both in Central Russia. ('Province of Kashin'—presumably the Province of Tula.) Nikolay, his elder brother, a consumptive crank.
Maria Nikolaevna, first name and patronymic, no surname given; diminutive: Masha; she is Nikolay's mistress, a reformed prostitute.
Nikolay's and Konstantin's sister, unnamed; living abroad.
131
Their elder half brother, Sergey Ivanovich Koznyshev, a writer on philosophic and social questions; has a house in Moscow and an estate in the Province of Kashin.
A professor from the University of Kharkov, South Russia.
Trubin, a cardsharp.
Kritski, an acquaintance of Nikolay Lydvin, embittered and leftist.
Vanyushka, a boy, adopted at one time by Nikolay Lyovin, now a clerk in the office of Pokrovskoe, the Lyovins' estate.
Prokofi, Koznyshev's man servant.
Menials on Konstantin Lyovin's estate: Vasili Fyodorovich (first name and patronymic), the steward; Agafia Mihaylovna (first name and patronymic), formerly nurse of Lyovin's sister, now his housekeeper; Filip, a gardener; Kuzma, a house servant; Ignat, a coachman; Semyon, a contractor; Prohor, a peasant.
Commentary N o tes (part one)*
No. 1
In the Russian text, the word
No.
Oblonski with several of his friends, such as Vronski and presumably Alabin, is considering arranging a restaurant supper in honor of a famous songstress (see note 75); these pleasant plans permeate his dream and mingle with recollections of recent news in the papers: he is a great reader of political hodge-podge. I find that about this time (February 1872) the Cologne
No. 3 77
'My Treasure.' From Mozart's
Ottavio, whose attitude toward women is considerably more moral than Oblonski's (p.4).
No. 4
The first 'she' refers to Mile. Roland, the second to Oblonski's wife Dolly, who is already eight months pregnant (Dolly is to be delivered of a girl at the end of the winter, that is in March) (p.6).
No. 5
*
Page references are to the 1935 Modern Library Edition; but the key phrases sometimes represent Nabokov's retranslations.
132
Where the Oblonskis rented a carriage and a pair. Now the rent is due (p.7).
No. 6
In speaking to a servant, Oblonski refers to his sister and wife by their first names and patronymics. In the reference to Dolly, there would not have been much difference had he said
'Daria Aleksandrovna' (p.7).
No. 7
Fashionable in the seventies throughout Europe and America (p.7).
No. 8
Matvey reflects that his master wishes to see if his wife will react to the news in the same way as she would have before their estrangement (p.8).
No. 9
The old servant uses a comfortably fatalistic folksy term:
No. 10
The nurse quotes the first part of a common Russian proverb : 'He who likes coasting should like dragging his little sleigh'
(p.8).
No. 11
Cases of flushing, blushing, reddening, crimsoning, coloring, etc. (and the opposite action of growing pale), are prodigiously frequent throughout this novel and, generally, in the literature of the time. It might be speciously argued that in the nineteenth century people blushed and blanched more readily and more noticeably than today, mankind then being as it were younger; actually, Tolstoy is only following an old literary tradition of using the act of flushing, etc., as a kind of code or banner that informs or reminds the reader of this or that character's feelings (p.9). Even so the device is a little overdone and clashes with such passages in the book where, as in Anna's case, 'blushing' has the reality and value of an individual trait.
This may be compared to another formula Tolstoy makes much use of: the 'slight smile,' which conveys a number of shades of feeling—amused condescension, polite sympathy, sly friendliness, and so on.
No. 12
The name of this merchant (p.9), who eventually does acquire that forest at Ergushovo (the Oblonski's estate), is Ryabinin: he is to appear in part two, chapter 16.
No. 13
