After leaving the prince at the rail station and returning home, Vronsky finds a note from Anna Karenina. She writes that she is ill, unhappy, and unable to leave her house; she asks him to come see her tonight between seven o'clock and ten o'clock, while Alexey Alexandrovitch is at his council meeting. For a moment, Vronsky hesitates because her husband has strictly forbidden her to have Vronsky in his home, but he decides to go.

Vronsky has gotten his promotion to colonel, left the regimental quarters, and gotten a home by himself. That afternoon, he takes a nap and immediately he dreams; many of the disgusting scenes from the past week are melding with images of Anna Karenina in a nightmarish confusion. At the end, there is a dirty, disheveled man mumbling terrifying words in French. Vronsky wakes up in the dark, trembling with horror.

It is already eight thirty, and Vronsky is worried he will be late for his visit with Anna Karenina. He arrives at the gate of her house at ten minutes before nine, and he recognizes her carriage waiting at the entrance and assumes she is preparing to come to him. Though he thinks that would be a better idea, for he has great unease about entering this house, Vronsky gets out of his sledge and walks unashamed to the front door. As he arrives, the door opens just as a porter calls for the carriage. Vronsky has just enough time to note the surprise on the porter’s face before he comes face-to-face with Alexey Alexandrovitch.

Vronsky sees the man’s sallow face with his fixed, dull eyes focused directly upon him, and he bows at the older man. Alexey Alexandrovitch merely chews his lip for a moment, lifts his hand to his hat, and moves on toward his carriage. Vronsky hears the carriage leave and enters the hall with a scowl on his face, eyes gleaming with anger and pride. He detests his position. If Alexey Alexandrovitch would somehow stand up and fight for his honor, Vronsky could act, could express his feelings; however, he is forced to live in falseness, something he never wanted or intended to do.

Since he and Anna Karenina spoke in the Vrede garden, his ideas have changed. Then, he thought that their relationship might end and he would be satisfied. Now, unconsciously yielding to her complete surrender and submission to him, his own ambitions have retreated into the background and he has given himself up to his passion; and that passion is binding him ever closer to Anna Karenina.

Vronsky hears her coming. He knows she has been waiting for him, expecting him, and when she finally sees him, she begins to cry in her distress. She tells him that if things continue like this, “the end” will come much too soon. He should have been here hours ago, but she cannot quarrel with him and knows he should not have come. Putting her hands on Vronsky’s shoulders, Anna Karenina gazes at him with a “profound, passionate . . . searching look.” She studies him as if to make up for lost time, and every time she sees him, she makes the picture of him in her imagination (a much romanticized and unrealistic picture) adjust to the man he really is.