The dinner, the dining room, the service, the waiting at table, the
wine, and the food, were not simply in keeping with the general tone
of modern luxury throughout the house, but seemed even more sumptuous
and modern. Darya Alexandrovna watched this luxury which was novel to
her, and as a good housekeeper used to managing a household—although
she never dreamed of adapting anything she saw to her own household,
as it was all in a style of luxury far above her own manner of
living—she could not help scrutinizing every detail and wondering how
and by whom it was done. Vassenka Veslovsky, her husband, and even
Sviazhsky, and many other people she knew, would never have considered
this question, and would have readily believed what every well-bred
host tries to make his guests feel, that is, that all that is
well-ordered in his house has cost him, the host, no trouble
whatsoever, but comes of itself. Darya Alexandrovna was well aware
that even porridge for the children’s breakfast does not come of
itself, and that therefore, where so complicated and magnificent a
style of luxury was maintained, someone must give earnest attention to
its organization. And from the glance with which Alexey Kirillovitch
[Vronsky] scanned the table, ftrom the way he nodded to the butler,
and offered Darya Alexandrovna her choice between cold soup and hot
soup, she saw that it was all organized and maintained by the care of
the master of the house himself.

Anna Karenina, Part Five, Chapter 22
 
This quote, taken from the episode where Darya Alexandrovna, Stiva’s
wife and Kitty’s sister, visits Anna and Vronsky at his estate, is
linked to two other episodes that I haven’t quoted, one where Levin
and Kitty have a fight over her apparent indolence, which Tolstoy
explains in an end-of-chapter coda is because she is getting ready for
the effort necessary to maintain a household with children, and one
later on, where Anna explains to Darya Alexandrovna that she has had
her tubes tied (in more oblique language, of course) and will have no
more children.
 
Vronsky’s efforts to maintain this palace of luxury in the Russian
countryside seem cheapened and artificial when they are compared with
the happy jumble of summer visitors at the Levins’. Tolstoy points out
that there is a price to this kind of glamor: it is an adults-only
environment. Everything seems counterfeit, even the intentions behind
it: Vronsky wants to lure friends of Anna’s there in order for her to
be accepted into society after leaving her husband.