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A character in Anna Karenina

Kitty Shcherbatskaya

Dolly's youngest sister, eighteen, who refuses Levin for Vronsky, is humiliated, recovers, and marries Levin.

What they want

She wants to be loved, and later to be useful.

The book

Anna KareninaLeo Tolstoy, 1877

A woman leaves her husband for a cavalry officer, and a landowner in the country tries to work out what life is for.

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Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Kitty is young, pretty and sure that Vronsky will propose. Losing him makes her ill, and her recovery abroad makes her grow up.

How Kitty Shcherbatskaya Is Portrayed

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • The ballIn Part One, Chapter 23, she keeps the mazurka free for Vronsky and watches him dance it with Anna.
  • IllnessIn Part Two, Chapter 1, the doctors disagree over her and send her abroad to take the waters at Soden.
  • VarenkaIn Part Two, Chapters 30 to 35, at the spa she admires a devout young woman, Varenka, and tries to live like her.
  • Nursing NikolayIn Part Five, Chapter 18, she knows at once how to care for Levin's dying brother, when Levin himself cannot.
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Kitty marries Levin, and their son, Mitya, is born in Part Seven. In Part Eight she is at Pokrovskoe nursing the baby while Levin struggles with his doubts.

If you like Anna Karenina

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If you like Leo Tolstoy

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    French writer and philosopher whose novels, memoirs, and social analysis examined freedom, gender, responsibility, aging, and the material conditions that shape a life.

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    American novelist and composer whose expatriate fiction explores dislocation, unstable intimacy, fatalism, and North Africa.

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    Henry Miller

    The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.

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