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Unlike other major characters, Dolly’s haptic experiences are few. Nevertheless, the limited haptic experiences that she does have indicate that she is one of the characters (along with Levin and Kitty) who embody Tolstoi’s moral ideal. Dolly’s haptic experiences manifest themselves in three episodes. The first instance is the above analyzed pear-note episode, in which Stiva and Dolly’s hands cannot not touch. The pear in Stiva’s hand is associated with his

lascivious lifestyle. This, combined with the note revealing his unfaithfulness held in Dolly’s hand (telling of her moral condemnation of Stiva’s conduct), prevents their hands from touching. The second instance is an episode that I will analyze in the Chapter on Anna, when Anna arrives from Saint Petersburg to persuade Dolly to forgive Stiva. The episode is, however, telling of Anna’s rather than of Dolly’s haptic experiences. The third episode is the one that will be my focus in this chapter, since it reveals the way in which Tolstoi identifies Dolly as a moral ideal through her haptic perception.

On her way to visit Anna, who now lives with Vronskii at his estate, Dolly compares her own troubled life devoted to her children to Anna’s—who, as Dolly imagines, enjoys freedom, physical beauty, and passion with Vronskii. Recalling the hardships of motherhood, Dolly thinks of the painful sensation in her cracked nipples when breastfeeding (“Дарья Александровна

вздрогнула от одного воспоминания о боли треснувших сосков, которую она испытывала почти с каждым ребенком” [19:181]). While Stiva’s awareness of his body is associated with sensuality (as Anna’s is associated with hers, as will be discussed later), Dolly’s awareness of her body is linked to motherhood. Since Dolly experiences no other bodily sensations in the novel, it is safe to suggest that the pain in her nipples reflects her identity—that is, the identity of a mother.

It is true that Dolly temporarily feels conflicted about the way in which she has lived her life—devoting it solely to bearing and raising her children. She regrets her lost beauty and the nonchalant lifestyle she could have had without incessant concern for her children’s wellbeing. She even wonders if she was right to let Anna persuade her to stay with Stiva, and meditates on whether she should have left Stiva and enjoyed free love in the same way that Anna did: “Я тогда должна была бросить мужа и начать жизнь с начала. Я бы могла любить и быть любима по-настоящему. А теперь разве лучше? Я не уважаю его. Он мне нужен, — думала она про мужа, — и я терплю его. Разве это лучше? Я тогда еще могла нравиться, у меня оставалась моя красота” (19:182).

Dolly temporarily associates the pain in her cracked nipples, and therefore her motherhood, solely with hardships. She also reflects on the unnecessary sacrifice—as she is tempted to admit—of her beauty and joy to her husband, who does not love her, and to her children, who misbehave and may, she is afraid, grow up to be poorly mannered despite her strenuous efforts (“Так что и вывести детей я не могу сама, а разве с помощью других, с унижением. Ну, да если предположим самое счастливое: дети не будут больше умирать, и я кое-как воспитаю их. В самом лучшем случае они только не будут негодяи. Вот всё, чего

я могу желать. Из-за всего этого сколько мучений, трудов... Загублена вся жизнь!” [19:182]).

Tolstoi associates Dolly’s doubts in the value of motherhood and her envy for Anna’s free lifestyle with an autoerotic impulse. Dolly is tempted to look at herself in a little mirror that she keeps in her bag to check her looks (wondering if she still can be found attractive). Although she then decides not to, feeling ashamed of what the coachman and the clerk may think of her, she continues to daydream of possible romances:

«… Я тогда еще могла нравиться, у меня оставалась моя красота», продолжала думать Дарья Александровна, и ей хотелось посмотреться в зеркало. У ней было дорожное зеркальце в мешочке, и ей хотелось достать его; но, посмотрев на спины кучера и покачивавшегося конторщика, она почувствовала, что ей будет совестно, если кто-нибудь из них оглянется, и не стала доставать зеркала. Но и не глядясь в зеркало, она думала, что и теперь еще не поздно, и она вспомнила Сергея Ивановича, который был особенно любезен к ней, приятеля Стивы, доброго Туровцына, который вместе с ней ухаживал за ее детьми во время скарлатины и был влюблен в нее. И еще был один совсем молодой человек, который, как ей шутя сказал муж, находил, что она красивее всех сестер. И самые страстные и невозможные романы представлялись Дарье Александровне. (19:183) Dolly’s urge to look at herself in the mirror reverberates with other instances in the novel when characters direct their attention to their own bodies. For instance, Vronskii strokes his leg, which hurts after his fall in the horse race, and enjoys the painful sensation, which Tolstoi associates with his self-centered and amoral personality. Kitty feels the marble coldness of her skin at the ball, which is associated with her surfacing sensuality and the self-admiration linked to her naïve—but still morally wrong—infatuation with Vronskii. Anna experiences the

hallucinatory sensations of Vronskii’s kisses on her skin, testifying to the obsessive and self- absorbed nature of her desire.11 Just as with the above characters’ physical sensations, Dolly’s wish to admire her physical beauty (or what is left of it) suggests an autoerotic impulse. Unlike

the above characters, though, Dolly is unconsciously aware that her daydreams of being physically attractive are vain and immoral. She feels ashamed of her urge, and her shame prevents her from consummating the autoerotic impulse to look in the mirror.

Tolstoi’s reference to vision in describing Dolly’s deviation from the moral ideal of motherhood does not seem accidental. As discussed earlier, Plato’s “cave” metaphor associates vision with morality. Tolstoi links Dolly’s impulse to look at herself in the mirror with her erotic fantasies, which temporary make her self-absorbed and alienate her from her children. Since Dolly’s autoerotic urges alienate her from her children, Tolstoi suggests that these urges are immoral, just as her self-absorbed gaze would have been had she looked in the mirror.12 Tolstoi directly associates gaze with moral authority when he writes that Dolly is afraid to look at herself in the mirror for fear of her shame if the coachman or the clerk saw her doing it (“она

почувствовала, что ей будет совестно, если кто-нибудь из них оглянется” (emphasis added; 19:183)). The coachman and the clerk are common people who, according to Tolstoi’s moral vision, have an innate moral sense. For instance, when Dolly has an unpleasant impression of Vronskii’s estate and Anna’s life there later in the scene, she double-checks this impression with the coachman—as if he were a figure of moral authority—and he confirms that life in the estate is fraught with falsehood. The coachman and the clerk’s vision embodies the moral authority that stops Dolly from consummating her autoerotic urge when it undermines her moral sense.

Dolly’s fear of being seen and judged by the coachman and the clerk indicates not only that she considers them to be figures of moral authority but also points to her close connection with the world of the peasantry. Her fear of their morally judgmental gaze reveals that she does

12 _{Unlike Dolly’s, Anna’s vision does become self-directed in the episode in which it seems to her that she can see} the shining of her own eyes in the darkness after she yields to Vronskii’s pursuit and professes her love for him. Anna’s self-directed gaze reflects her growing self-absorption regarding her passion for Vronskii, as she simultaneously grows alienated from others. I discuss Anna’s vision in detail in the chapter devoted to her.

not separate herself from the common people and views herself as a part of their community, regardless of their differing social statuses. Since Dolly is a part of their community, their

communal moral sense restrains Dolly’s urge when her individual morality is about to fail. Since the shame of committing an act that the common people (and she herself) consider to be illicit prevents her from consummating the autoerotic urge to look at herself in the mirror, her vision never becomes self-directed. Likewise, Dolly, unlike Anna, never becomes self-absorbed in passion. Rather, Dolly’s eyes remain open to the world, anticipating her emotional reconnection with her children and a regained appreciation of motherhood.

Having visited Anna, Dolly realizes the artificiality and misery of Anna’s life with Vronskii and longs to return home to her children—the habitual domestic world which she now finds especially dear:

Оставшись одна, Долли помолилась Богу и легла в постель. Ей всею душой было жалко Анну в то время, как она говорила с ней; но теперь она не могла себя заставить думать о ней. Воспоминания о доме и детях с особенною, новою для нее прелестью, в каком-то новом сиянии возникали в ее воображении. Этот ее мир показался ей теперь так дорог и мил, что она ни за что не хотела вне его провести лишний день и решила, что завтра непременно уедет. (19:217)

Describing Dolly’s renewed affection for her home and children, Tolstoi uses the visual image of light—“radiance” (“в каком-то новом сиянии возникали в ее воображении”). The fact that Dolly does not look at herself in the mirror suggests that, unlike Anna, she has not become enclosed in her sexual urges. Since her vision remains untainted by erotic impulse, she begins to appreciate her domestic life even more than she did before her temporary disappointment, seeing it in a “new light/radiance.” In keeping with Plato, Tolstoi’s association between Dolly’s

renewed, tender love for her family and the light imagery—“radiance” (“сияние”)—indicates that love for family is the ideal to which one should strive, regardless of the hardships. While

Anna becomes seduced by carnal pleasure, Dolly does not, which allows her to regain her tenderness for and a new, greater appreciation of her family.

As previously mentioned, Tolstoi reveals Dolly’s identity as a mother through her sole haptic sensation—that is, the pain in her cracked nipples from breastfeeding. The context in which Dolly recollects this sensation does not seem accidental. Dolly recalls the pain only when she undergoes an inner conflict between carnal pleasure and motherhood, when her erotic

impulse challenges her identity as a parent. Since breastfeeding implies physical contact between a mother and a child, one can interpret the pain in Dolly’s nipples not only as a testimony to the hardships of motherhood, but also as the pain of separation when her erotic impulses threaten her emotional (and, it would seem, physical) connection to her children. In this regard, Tolstoi may be contrasting carnal love to motherly love through the choice of Dolly’s haptic memory. On the one hand, as Tolstoi’s non-fictional writings testify, he views breastfeeding as a manifestation of a woman’s morality, since he believes that breastfeeding is one of the duties prescribed to her by God. On the other hand, breastfeeding is evocative of intercourse, in the sense that both imply a kind of penetration (in the case of breastfeeding, a mother’s breast “penetrates” a child’s mouth). In choosing breastfeeding as Dolly’s haptic experience while describing Anna’s intercourse with Vronskii, Tolstoi highlights the contrast between motherhood and sexual desire—emphasizing Dolly’s identity as a mother rather than as a sexual being.

Because motherhood rather than sexuality dominates Dolly’s identity, she can overcome erotic temptation to gain a deeper appreciation of her domestic life—something that Anna cannot do. Contrasting carnal and parental loves, Tolstoi suggests that carnal love limits the parental. Unlike Stiva, whose love for his children is unequal, Dolly’s love for her family is not only equal but also increases as she overcomes temptation.

In terms of Dolly’s sensory perception, since both the haptic (pain in the nipples) and the visual (“radiant” motherly love) are associated with Dolly’s motherhood, the haptic does not override the visual in Dolly’s sensorium as it does in Stiva’s (and in Anna’s and Vronskii’s, as will be discussed later). Since Dolly’s haptic and visual experiences belong to the same source— her identity as a mother—her inherent physical connection to her children, reflected in the pain in her nipples, engenders the “radiance” of her renewed and strengthened motherly love.The fact that the physical/haptic does not limit but rather generates the visual suggests that Dolly has achieved the correct balance between body and soul (corporeal and spiritual, haptic and visual) through her role as a mother.

Tolstoi associates Dolly’s haptic experience of the pain in her nipples with the pivotal moment of her moral near-fall, which, however, results in strengthened motherly love,

reconfirming her identity as a mother. The fact that Dolly does not experience any other haptic sensations and hardly participates in haptic interactions may testify to the inner balance that she has achieved in motherhood. Unlike other characters, who deviate from or aspire to Tolstoi’s moral ideal in the course of their lives—Dolly occupies a static space, resigning herself to and rejoicing in her family life, despite the hardships and frustrations that she endures. One could speculate that the characters’ sensory (and particularly haptic) experiences testify to the fact that their lives are unbalanced, whether they aspire towards the spiritual or undergo moral failure. Therefore, the lack of Dolly’s haptic experiences in comparison with the other major characters is as informative and significant for revealing Dolly’s identity as are her haptic experiences themselves (however few). Her lack of haptic sensation indicates that she has achieved inner balance through motherhood, compromising with her husband’s unfaithfulness and devoting herself to her children, whom she genuinely loves. Though her domestic situation is perhaps far

from ideal, she fulfills and is content with her role as a woman, as Tolstoi’s views it, serving her family and working to preserve its unity despite her husband’s escapades. In this sense, Dolly can be viewed as a static, unifying center for her family, desiring nothing more than she already has. She is therefore excluded from the failures and ascents that other characters undergo, and that Tolstoi communicates through their haptic (and other sensory) experiences.