After Princess Betsy and Stepan Arkadyevitch explain to him that all his wife wants is for him to stay away from her, Alexey Alexandrovitch is so distraught that he can make no decisions for himself. Whenever people step in to decide things for him, he readily assents. Only after Anna Karenina has gone and the English governess asks if she should dine with him or by herself does he clearly comprehend his position—and he is appalled by it.

The most difficult thing for him is reconciling his past with his present. He is not troubled by memories of his happy past with Anna Karenina; and, though it is painful to think about, he understands his wife’s unfaithfulness. Even if she had left him after declaring her unfaithfulness, Alexey Alexandrovitch would not be in this hopeless and incomprehensible position. Now he cannot reconcile the tenderness and love he felt for his sick wife and another man’s child with his current position: alone and ashamed, a useless laughing-stock despised by everyone.

For two days after Anna Karenina left, Alexey Alexandrovitch manages to perform his routine duties and remain composed and even indifferent to what has happened to him, though it costs him every bit of his nerve to hide his despair. On the second day, he is brought a bill from a fashionable clothing shop which his wife had not paid, and he sends for the clerk. When the man arrives, Alexey Alexandrovitch sits with his head in his hands for a long while, attempting several times to speak but not succeeding. The clerk finally leaves and Alexey Alexandrovitch finally has to admit he does not have the strength to maintain appearances any longer.

He knows that he will have to withdraw from society, for it will be merciless to him for this weakness. His despair is intensified because he knows there is not one other person in St. Petersburg to whom he can express his feelings and be seen simply as a suffering man.

Alexey Alexandrovitch is an orphan, raised (along with two brothers) by his uncle who is a government official in high standing. Through high school, university, and the service, Alexey Alexandrovitch had not developed any close friendships. One brother had been close, but he had died shortly after Alexey Alexandrovitch’s marriage. While he was governor of a province, Alexey Alexandrovitch was paired with Anna Karenina by her wealthy aunt, and he was soon in a position of having to leave town or declare himself to her. There were as many reasons for the match as against it, so he made her the offer; from then on he concentrated on his betrothed all the feeling of which he was capable.

His attachment to Anna Karenina had precluded the need for him to develop any other relationships, and now he has plenty of connections but not one friend. The two closest men to him are his chief secretary and his doctor, but he has reasons for not confiding in them. The one who might be a help to him is Countess Lidia Ivanovna, but she is a woman and all women are terrible and distasteful to him now.