Quote 3
“Respect
was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. But
if you don’t love me, it would be better and more honest to say
so.”
In these lines from Part Seven, Chapter
24, Anna reproaches Vronsky for putting his mother’s needs before
hers. When Vronsky asks to postpone their move to the country a
few days so that he can transact some business for Countess Vronsky
first, Anna objects, prompting Vronsky to say it is a pity Anna
does not respect his mother. Anna’s response dismisses the very
notion of respect in a rather surprising way. First, Anna makes
an irrational connection between Vronsky’s mother in the first sentence
and herself in the second. Anna refers to the lack of love Vronsky
must feel for his mother and then immediately—saying “But” as if
continuing the same thought—refers to his lack of love for herself,
Anna. We see clearly that, as in many marital quarrels, the apparent
topic of conversation (Vronsky’s respect for his mother) thinly
covers the underlying topic of the spouses’ relationship. Second,
Anna’s contrast between respect and love is startling, even illogical.
Most of us value respect and do not consider it the opposite of
love or a substitute for love. But we must remember Anna’s situation:
respect is a public virtue, while love is a private one, and Anna
is an outcast from society with no hopes of public pardon. We cannot
blame her for hating the social respect that will never be hers
again. Moreover, Anna’s anger at Vronsky retains traces of her frustration
with Karenin. Respectability is Karenin’s great concern, often to
the detriment of his private life, as when he prefers keeping a
rotten marriage that looks respectable to an honest divorce that
would have the potential to accommodate love.
