Hope and Order

(Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 18)

As I read this chapter, all I could think or feel was how much I want to be like Kitty.  With such grace and power she brought order to this terrible situation!  Levin's brother lies dying and and Levin feels powerless to help him.  But not Kitty.  She has the sense, that I believe all women possess somewhere within themselves, of how to relieve this dying man's discomfort and, more importantly, to give him a brief respite of hope.

I feel that her actions in this chapter highlight the glorious work that women have to do: to love and serve.  She was doing what so many of us do on a daily basis.  She was cleaning, managing, organizing.  And yet reading it in Tolstoy's words helps me to see that it isn't just humdrum, run-of-the-mill work.  It is the work of God.  We are being His hands, even if we aren't doing it for a dying man, even if we're only doing it for our family.  Love and service--charity--is our legacy as women.  We must not cheapen it by considering it as naught.