Tolstoy on Shame

The doctor’s prediction was fulfilled. Kitty returned home to Russia cured. She was not so gay and thoughtless as before, but she was serene. Her Moscow troubles had become a memory to her.

Dostoevsky: not known for easy reading

Anna Karenina has been my first Tolstoy book. Tolstoy intimidates me for two reasons. First, because you could bludgeon someone to death with even the paperback version of War and Peace. Second,  because I have only read one other Russian author and that author happened to be Dostoevsky. That man’s prose is so dense that I feel like I am swimming through mud when trying to understand the dialogue between his characters. I understand that this problem lies with me and not him though. Not to mention, I cannot help but respect Dostoevsky because several of my favorite people happen to also be his devoted readers.

However, Dostoevsky aside, now that I am ankle-deep into this somewhat shorter story of Tolstoy’s, I find myself enjoying the experience much more than I expected. This story is akin to a picture album and each chapter a snapshot: compact, tidy, almost self-reliant. They all have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and this is much rarer of an occurrence than you might think. I just want to put some of these snapshots in frames and hang them around my home.

Kitty’s dilemma

One of those pictures, in particular, is the passage I shared with you above. We come to this passage at the end of Part II (of how many parts I am not completely certain yet). Kitty is a young woman who expects to be married. She falls in love with a man and mistakes his fondness for commitment. It is not until they both attend a ball and the man pursues another woman for the most important dance of the evening that the truth of the matter hits home for Kitty. Sadly, she has been deceived and the life that she imagined for herself falls apart right at the moment when she expects it to come together.

Leo Tolstoy: following a rich tradition of beardedness

And so we must watch Kitty try to come to terms with the harsh reality of rejection. Well-meaning family members try to console her, but Kitty lashes out like a drowning swimmer, hurting those who might pull her out of the water. She refuses to forgive the man who has hurt her, but this only hurts her more. Unfortunately, her sister is not the last person she lashes out towards.

Because of her refusal to dismiss this rejection, this memory begins to consume Kitty. By not facing this demon, her memory becomes her primary reality. And while this reality may have begun with the man who deceives her, it ends with Kitty. Her obsession with this shame becomes an obsession with self and she loses her ability to relate to others. She becomes so overwhelmed by her shame that her family calls a doctor to diagnose what they believe must be a physical illness. And what does he say? Well, he recommends sending her on a trip out of Russia. A splendid idea, it turns out.

kitty’s solution

It is on this trip that Kitty meets Varenka. Varenka is a young woman, adopted into the aristocracy that Kitty was born into, and possibly because of this she possesses the ability to spend none of her time concerned with her appearance. Instead, she spends all of her time serving those unable to take care of themselves. This fascinates Kitty and she finds herself unable to think about anyone but Varenka. She reaches out to this young woman and befriends her, wishing to know her secret.

She asks Varenka about her life, her past, and learns about a past love whom Varenka believed she would marry. Intrigued by this news, Kitty pries further into Varenka’s pasts, hoping to learn how she overcame the shame, and through this reveals her own story. Varenka soon realizes that they are no longer talking about her anymore.

“Tell me, isn’t it humiliating to think that a man has disdained your love, that he hasn’t cared for it?…the humiliation one can never forget, can never forget,” she said, remembering her look at the last ball during the pause in the music.

Kitty continues asking Varenka how she could not be humiliated and ashamed, but Varenka pushes back.

“Oh! if everyone were as sensitive as you are!” said Varenka. “There isn’t a girl who hasn’t been through the same. And it’s all so unimportant.”

“Why, what is important?” said Kitty, looking into her face with inquisitive wonder.

“Oh, there’s so much that’s important,” said Varenka, smiling.

“Why, what?”

“Oh, so much that’s more important,” answered Varenka, not knowing what to say.

Believe me, there is something I found frustrating about Varenka’s response as well. It can’t be so simple as just realizing there are other things that are more important. But maybe Varenka is onto something. Regardless of how we feel, we must act according to what we know is true. Even if we feel that a wrong done to us is unforgivable or that a certain shameful memory is inescapable, we can overcome it in the end by taking the first step of acting as we would if we had already overcome it.

charity: simple, but not easy

C.S. Lewis talks about this in Mere Christianity as he explains the finer points of Charity or “Love, in the Christian sense…that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.”

The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less…whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more, or, at least, to dislike it less.

A reasonable practice, even a simple practice, though certainly not an easy one. But this is what we are called to do and doesn’t Kitty’s experience reinforce the idea? She is taught by Varenka, through her actions, that actions not only may come before feelings, not only may help us overcome feelings, but can even play a vital part in molding them into something greater.

C.S. Lewis: no beard but reading a bigger book than Tolstoy

Kitty has already won a huge victory through her experience with Varenka and learning how to let a memory be no more than a memory. The feelings that consumed her soul and for so long paralyzed her ability to repay love with kindness have been overcome. Perhaps, and this is my hope (although I am nowhere near the end of the book), Kitty’s actions will help her to not only overcome her feelings of shame but enable her to even forgive the man who harmed her. Only time will tell as Kitty returns home to Russia.

What do you think? Can we feel a certain way if we act like we do for long enough? Is this something we want to do or is it insincere? Let me know in the comments below!