doubt, in fewer pages than Tolstoy needs for the beautiful scenes of
his earlier chapters, scenes which make a perfect impression of Anna
and her circle as an onlooker might happen to see them, but which fail
to give the onlooker the kind of intimacy that is needed. Later on,
indeed, her life is penetrated to the depths; but then it is too late
to save the effect of the beginning. To the very end Anna is a
wonderful woman whose early history has never been fully explained.
The facts are clear, of course, and there is nothing impossible about
them; but her passion for this man, the grand event of her life, has
to be assumed on the word of the author. All that he really showed,
to start with, was a slight, swift love-story, which might have ended
as easily as it began.

The method of the book, in short, does not arise out of the subject;
in treating it Tolstoy simply used the method that was congenial to
him, without regarding the story that he had to tell. He began it as
though Anna's break with her past was the climax to which the story
was to mount, whereas it is really the point from which the story sets
out for its true climax in her final catastrophe. And so the first
part of the book is neither one thing nor the other; it is not an
independent drama, for it cannot reach its height through all the
necessary sweep of development; and on the other hand it is not a
sufficient preparation for the great picture of inevitable disaster
which is to follow. Tolstoy doubtless counted on his power--and not
without reason, for it is amazing--to call people into life by means
of a few luminous episodes; he knew he could make a living creature of
Anna by bringing her into view in half a dozen scenes. She descends,
accordingly, upon her brother's agitated household like a beneficent
angel, she shines resplendent at some social function, she meets
Vronsky, she talks to her husband; and Tolstoy is right, she becomes a
real and exquisite being forthwith. But he did not see how much more
was needed than a simple personal impression of her, in view of all
that is to come. Not she only, but her world, the world as she sees
it, her past as it affects her--this too is demanded, and for this he
makes no provision. It is never really shown how she was placed in her
life, and what it meant to her; and her flare of passion has
consequently no importance, no fateful bigness. There is not enough of
her, as yet, for such a crisis.

It is not