The novel's famous epigraph has focused this debate. "Мне отмщение, и аз воздам" is the standard Slavonic translation of a divine prophecy quoted by Paul to the Romans. The passage from the King James Authorised translation (with the relevant words italicised) is:
The second and third sentences quoted make clear that Paul is quoting in the spirit of the section of Leviticus in which God tells Moses:
But Paul is not in fact quoting this passage, but slightly misquoting from Moses in Deuteronomy:
To leave vengeance to the Lord is, however, merely to defer and outsource it. Can the epigraph be suggesting to its readers that they should not judge Anna, but leave it to the plot, which lies in the author's godlike hands? Anna can be seen as the author of her own downfall, by degenerating into febrile narcissism and delusion. But this degeneration seems underdetermined by her character as initially presented (by an idealising masculine narrator), facing such opprobrium as it encounters. It too seems somewhat imposed by the author, and part of her punishment. It is as though the progression which Anna's character had made through the novel's successive drafts from a crude coquette to the Anna we know, is partially reversed. In making Anna as attractive as she initially is, Tolstoy may have been testing how lovable he could make an adulteress, and still show the wages of sin.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him [. . .] Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
(Romans 12.19-21)
The second and third sentences quoted make clear that Paul is quoting in the spirit of the section of Leviticus in which God tells Moses:
Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.
(Leviticus 19.18)
But Paul is not in fact quoting this passage, but slightly misquoting from Moses in Deuteronomy:
To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. For the Lord shall judge his people.
(Deuteronomy 32. 35-36)
To leave vengeance to the Lord is, however, merely to defer and outsource it. Can the epigraph be suggesting to its readers that they should not judge Anna, but leave it to the plot, which lies in the author's godlike hands? Anna can be seen as the author of her own downfall, by degenerating into febrile narcissism and delusion. But this degeneration seems underdetermined by her character as initially presented (by an idealising masculine narrator), facing such opprobrium as it encounters. It too seems somewhat imposed by the author, and part of her punishment. It is as though the progression which Anna's character had made through the novel's successive drafts from a crude coquette to the Anna we know, is partially reversed. In making Anna as attractive as she initially is, Tolstoy may have been testing how lovable he could make an adulteress, and still show the wages of sin.
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