Sergei replies sarcastically, “See the Broomstick perform? Not I, little sister!” The Karenin siblings don’t rate the new star highly because of her technical imperfection and her sentimental interpretation. “She’s an absurd beauty.” “There’s no soul in the way she dances.”

A dark-green Mercedes limousine stops in front of the theater. It’s Prince Orlov’s, but the tsar likes to borrow it. A grouchy chauffeur sits at the wheel; a streetlamp shines on his face when the door is opened for the passenger.

In the lobby an old usher recognizes them immediately, calling to Sergei by his name—and quoting a few things he said in the past—and to the women by their surname, taking their coats, hats, muffs, snow boots, and Sergei’s cane. He doesn’t give them a claim check in return. “Just ask for Fyodor, I’ll bring you your things.” When Prince Orlov sees them, he nods and immediately turns his back; the Karenins just keep walking. The third bell rings just as they pass through the door to their box.

The bright candelabras and the lively bustle in the audience restore Claudia’s spirits. Anya takes the seat in the center of the front row, between the couple, which further irritates Sergei. They’re in the fifth box on the dress circle—baignoire five. All eyes are on radiant Anya, her gorgeous curly hair, thick and dark; her elegance; her dense black eyelashes; her skin the color of old marble; her gray eyes set against the eye-catching shade of her dress, a reddish purple that’s all the rage. She’s the spitting image of her mother, though no one would have thought so when she was little. If she differs in any way, it’s that in her features and movements you can see Tolstoy’s inspiration for creating her—he once met Pushkin’s oldest daughter, whose great-grandfather was an African, the Moor of St. Petersburg. When he notices people glancing at his sister, Sergei imagines what they’re whispering. “Poor thing!” “And so pretty!” “She’s exactly like her mother!” He’s livid.

The fact that she’s the spitting image of their mother is the main reason Sergei can’t bear to be near Anya. He feels betrayed every time he sees her; when Anya’s around, everyone thinks immediately of the Karenina and pegs them both as her children. But the truth is, though her presence magnifies the effect, it doesn’t change the way people think. Whether he’s with Anya or not, Sergei’s a marked man because he’s the son of that lovely woman who killed herself. Even the box they’re sitting in is the very same one that his mother occupied in a famous passage of the novel that bears her name.