Anna Karenina

11 .. some French verse: An almost literal translation of ‘Nul n‘est content de sa fortune, ni mécontent de son esprit’, a line by the French pastoral poet Mme Antoinette Déshoulieres (1637-94).

12 Bouffe: Opera bouffe (from the Italian opera buffa, ‘comic opera’) became popular in the eighteenth century. The Opéra-bouffe in Paris was opened at the Theatre Montmartre in 1847. In 1870 a French comic opera theatre called the Opera Bouffe was opened in Petersburg.

13 Rambouillet... graces and muses: The literary salon at the Hôtel Rambouillet, presided over by the Marquise de Rambouillet (1588-1665), was the most influential of its day, bringing together important writers, poets, artists and politicians - the ‘taste-makers’ of their age.

14 conscription: The new military regulations of 1874 replaced the twenty-five-year term of service by a maximum six-year term and abolished the privilege of exemption from military service enjoyed until then by the nobility. The plans for this reform were debated in the press during the early 1870s.

15 seven below: On the Réaumur scale, which was used in Russia at that time, a temperature of -7° is the equivalent of -9°C (16° F).

16 Krasnaya Gorka: In Russian popular tradition, the day known as Krasnaya Gorka (literally ‘Pretty Little Hill’), the Tuesday following St Thomas’s Sunday (the first Sunday after Easter), is a day of commemoration of the dead.

17 ploughs and harrows: Russian peasants used ploughs and harrows of hardened wood - hence the knock of axes. Tolstoy will later show Levin’s frustration at their resistance to the introduction of iron implements.

18 before Lent: That is, two months earlier.

19 polotok: Polotok is split and dried or smoked chicken; like home-made herb liqueurs and nettle soup, it is typical of Russian country fare.

20 preserves: Fruit preserves (more liquid than our jams) were commonly served in little dishes after dinner with coffee or tea.

21 Ossianic: That is, like the heroines of the Romantic forgery Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760), which the author, James Macpherson (1736-96), claimed he had translated from the Gaelic of a bard named Ossian.

22 ‘To count the sands ...’: Oblonsky quotes, not quite accurately, from the famous ode ‘God’, by Gavrila Derzhavin (1743-1816), the major Russian poet of the age preceding Pushkin.

23 icon: According to custom, every room in a Russian house should have an icon, if not several icons, usually in the corner to far right of the door. Lower-class people, merchants and tradesmen, would still look for the icon and cross themselves on entering a room, a habit enlightened aristocrats like Oblonsky and Levin have lost.

24 electric light everywhere: In the early 1870s electric light was still a great rarity and was generally considered impracticable. However, it could be found as a technical novelty in some amusement establishments.

25 Wertherian: Werther is the hero of The Sorrows of Young Werther, a semi-autobiographical novel in letters about unhappy love and suicide, by the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).

26 Krasnoe Selo: ‘Beautiful Village‘, originally some fifteen miles southwest of Petersburg, by 1973 was incorporated into the city itself. At the turn of the nineteenth century, wooden palaces were built there for members of the imperial family; the imperial residences of Tsarskoe Selo and Gatchina were also near by. From 1823 until the revolution, the village housed a military school and a guards corps (hence Vronsky’s presence). In 1861 a racetrack was built there and the place became a fashionable summer suburb for the Petersburg aristocracy.

27 Thule: Or Ultima Thule, was the Greek and Latin name of a legendary land some six days’ sail north of Britain, thought to be the northernmost place in the world. The line is from the opera Faust, by French composer Charles Gounod (1818-93), based on Goethe’s monumental drama of the same title.

28 Peterhof: An imperial residence and park on the Bay of Kronstadt, built in 1711 by Peter the Great.

29 ... thought of her son ... : In Russia before the revolution divorce was granted by an ecclesiastical court and was very difficult to obtain. Only the injured party could sue for divorce, and the offending party was denied custody of the children and the right to remarry.

30 provincial marshal: The provincial marshal of nobility was the highest elective office in a Russian province; governors and other administrative officers were appointed by the tsar.