Tolstoy does leave us to guess about Anna's happiness but I think he does provide some clues. I think the seeds of her discontent were there when she met Vronsky but it is difficult if not impossible for us to know what those seeds are, but Vronsky recognized them somehow and took advantage.I am guessing that Anna, before, Vronsky was living a life where she was fairly satisfied with life, a good home, a husband, a child, a place in society, and she lived in a way she thought she should, not really questioning her happiness. It was not until she met Vronsky that a longing for something more and a realization (or perhaps in illusion) that she was not happy began to grow in her.
I think this is true and I think there are some indications of oppressiveness in Parts 1 and 2, for example, when she returns from Petersburg on the train and spends her first night back with her husband, I think her feelings of this oppressiveness were coming through. At one point in Part 2, when she is out late and her husband is thinking about what to say to her, he comments that perhaps she does have a life of her own, or something to that effect, as if he just realized that. But the scenes where Alexei is thinking about his wife's apparent unfaithfulness and the agony he is going through shows how much he does love her.In part 3, when Anna tells her husband the truth and we also see how much she as begun to see her years with her husband as oppressive ones. Were they really like that, or does she just feel this way now that she doesn't want to be there anymore?
Perhaps Anna is struggling with a basic conflict between living a life that she feels is true to herself (authentic) and living a life that she feels she should live and which she feels fairly satisfied with. I also think she is uncertain and scared because she sees terrible risk in attempting to resolve this problem.deep down she knew she was not really happy, she was not living an authentic life, the real Anna needed something more.
I enjoyed the horse race scenes in Part 2. I thought the structure that Tolstoy used, with the seperate narratives of the race from the perspective of Vronsky first and then Anna and Alexei was quite brilliant and provided and excellent lead up to disclosure of the affair. By the end of Part 2 I really felt that Anna is "doomed", but exactly how she is doomed and to what is an open question.
Part 2 closes with Kitty's scene at the German spa and the strange encounter with Nickolai Levin. His presence and Kitty's exploration of life's possibilites through her friend Varenka are compelling and seem to have some wider meaning.
I do believe that Anna is younger than her husband, I place her as late twenties where he seems older, perhaps in his forties? Not sure why I have this impression but perhaps it is the way he is so established in his work and community.
