Sometimes a synonym isn’t good enough. It’s important to know that even very similar words and phrases can have difference connotations. The use of one or the other may change meanings in your work if you aren’t looking. To see what I mean by this, let’s look at three English translations of the very same passage at the beginning of Anna Karenina.

Prince Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky, the heroine’s brother, woke up on the couch. His wife, Princess Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya (Dolly), had discovered that he had been having an affair with their children’s nanny. Oblonsky considered his behavior and Dolly’s pain. He was surprised that Dolly was surprised. He was even surprised that she was hurt.

Let us start with the Maude translation:

Oblonsky was truthful with himself. He was incapable of self-deception and could not persuade himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not feel repentant that he, a handsome amorous man of thirty-four, was not in love with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children and only a year younger than himself. He repented only of not having managed to conceal his conduct from her. Nevertheless, he felt his unhappy position and pitied his wife, his children, and himself. He might perhaps have been able to hide things from her had he known that the knowledge would so distress her. He had never clearly considered the matter, but had a vague notion that his wife had long suspected him of being unfaithful and winked at it.[1]

The corresponding passage in the Garnett translation:

Stepan Arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations with himself. He was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not at this date repent of the fact that he, a handsome, susceptible man of thirty-four, was not in love with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children, and only a year younger than himself. All he repented of was that he had not succeeded better in hiding it from his wife. But he felt all the difficulty of his position and was sorry for his wife, his children, and himself. Possibly he might have managed to conceal his sins better from his wife if he had anticipated that the knowledge of them would have had such an effect on her. He had never clearly thought out the subject, but he had vaguely conceived that his wife must long ago have suspected him of being unfaithful to her, and shut her eyes to the fact.[2]

In the Pevear–Volokhonsky translation,

Stepan Arkadyich was a truthful man concerning his own self. He could not deceive himself into believing that he repented of his behavior. He could not now be repentant that he, a thirty-four-year-old handsome, amorous man, did not feel amorous with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children, who was only a year younger than he. He repented only that he had not managed to conceal things better from her. But he felt all the gravity of his situation, and pitied his wife, his children and himself. Perhaps he would have managed to hide his sins better from his wife had he anticipated that the news would have such an effect on her. He had never thought the question over clearly, but vaguely imagined that his wife had long suspected him of being unfaithful to her and was looking the other way.[3]

Did Dolly shut her eyes to her husband’s womanizing, wink at it, or was she looking the other way? And does it make a difference? Well, as we’ll see, it makes all the difference.

The question is not what Dolly was really doing, but what Oblonksy saw her as doing. If she winked at his cheating, this suggests that she acknowledged that his philandering was forbidden but regarded it with amusement and maybe even affection and indulgence. If, on the other hand, Oblonksy believed that she shut her eyes to the infidelity, the connotation is that she could not bear to see it, that it caused her pain but he persisted in it, anyway. That makes his conduct harmful and malicious. And then consider Dutch Schultz’s warehouse in Billy Bathgate, with all its evidence of bootlegging, loansharking, beatings, tax evasions, and murder. And there are the police, looking the other way. If Dolly was looking the other way, then she was complicit; she had the power to stop it, but she didn’t.

In order to determine which translation gets it right, you have to consider Oblonsky’s character as a whole. This is a guy who had (for him) a happy dream in which women are decanters. He didn’t know that having sex with the children’s nanny would hurt Dolly. He tried to advocate for his sister with her estranged husband, Karenin, but he thought that the divorce was more important to Anna than was custody of her young son, Serezha. He sold his forest without counting the trees, and so he allowed himself to be swindled. There is nothing about Oblonksy’s conduct during the entire book that suggests that he intended to hurt people. To the contrary, he was oblivious to the long-term consequences of his actions and wanted to do what felt good in the moment, but he had no malice. After the dust settled and Dolly had taken him back, Oblonksy went on a hunting trip for a few days with Levin and one other. In the evening, Oblonsky and Levin had a conversation. Here’s the relevant part of it:

‘Is that to say, he should court the maid-servants?’ asked Levin.
‘Why not, if it’s amusing? Ca ne tire pas à consequence. My wife won’t be the worse for it, and I shall have a spree. The important part is to guard the sanctity of the home! Nothing of that kind at home; but you needn’t tie your hands.’ [4]

Once he learned that his infidelity hurt Dolly, he continued the infidelity, but took care to ensure that she would know nothing. Out of his own mouth, we have our answer. Until he learned that his cheating injured his wife, he thought she winked at it. From Oblonsky’s viewpoint, Dolly couldn’t have been shutting her eyes to anything, because he didn’t think that his affairs could hurt her. His subsequent refusal to have affairs with other women in the home suggests he learned that it hurt Dolly. After all, Dolly can’t look away from what she doesn’t know is there.

In case there’s any question about what Tolstoy thinks of eyes in Anna Karenina, Dolly herself tells us: ‘Very well, I will speak to her [about asking Karenin for a divorce]. But how is it she herself does not think of it?’ asked Dolly, suddenly remembering that strange new habit Anna had of screwing up her eyes. And she remembered that it was just when the intimate side of life was in question that Anna screwed up her eyes. ‘As if she were blinking at her life so as not to see it all,’ thought Dolly.[5]

Oblonksy isn’t a callous monster, and it’s important that the reader understand this early in the book, or they’ll approach him, Anna, and the story all wrong. Tolstoy plays Oblonsky’s particular flavor of adultery, and his moral life, against that of his sister Anna Karenina. In Tolstoy’s universe, Oblonsky isn’t a monster and neither is Anna. So it matters what Dolly was doing with her eyes.

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[1] Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, trans. Louise & Alymer Maude (New York & London: W.W. Norton & Co, Inc., 1970) 3.

[2] Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, trans. Constance Garnett (New York: Random House, 1965) 6.

[3] Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Penguin Books, 2004) 3

[4] Maude translation at 696. And Ca ne tire pas à consequence means “It is of no consequence.”

[5] Maude translation at 569. Also, note, the use of the single quotation mark ‘ is the British style; it is not a typo here.