The official reception has ended and people are openly making comments about Alexey Alexandrovitch. Some say he looks older, some say he looks happier than he has ever looked; all either find fault with him or laugh at him. The man himself is blocking the exit of a member of the Imperial Council, explaining his new financial project point by point. Alexey Alexandrovitch keeps talking for fear the man should escape and he will be left alone in the crowd.

Almost at the same time Anna Karenina left him, Alexey Alexandrovitch experienced the most bitter moment in the life of an official—though he is the only one who does not know it. It is the moment when his upward career comes to a complete stop. Everyone around him recognizes the change, but Alexey Alexandrovitch is unaware that his career is over. Though he still holds a position of consequence and sits on many commissions and committees, he is a man from whom nothing is expected because his time is over.

Everything Alexey Alexandrovitch says or proposes is dismissed as something redundant and most unnecessary. He is not aware that he has been cut off from direct participation in governmental activity and now sees the defects of others more clearly than ever; unfortunately, this knowledge and his sense of duty compel him to point out solutions for these problems. Soon after Anna Karenina left, he began writing the first of a now endless series of notes on the new judicial procedure. Not only does Alexey Alexandrovitch not discern his hopeless position in the official world, he is even more satisfied than ever with his own activity. The man to whom he is now talking is unmistakably impatient, but that does not bother Alexey Alexandrovitch; only when the man is able to slip away does he quit talking. Left alone, he looks down and collects his thoughts before looking casually around him and looks toward the door where he hopes to meet Countess Lidia Ivanovna.

Moving forward and bowing with his “customary air of weariness and dignity,” Alexey Alexandrovitch is stopped and congratulated on the honor he received today. He knows everyone laughs at him but expects nothing else from them; he is used to it by now. Alexey Alexandrovitch glimpses the countess and sees her eyes bidding him to come to her. She is dressed well and attractive in his eyes. For him she is the one spot of goodwill and love in the middle of the hostility and jeering which constantly surrounds him now.

Passing through a sea of mocking eyes, Alexey Alexandrovitch stays focused on the countess’s loving glance. When she congratulates him on receiving his honor, he knows she is sincere and he is pleased. They talk about his son’s education, and he is upset that Seryozha is not as excited about the course of study his father has set out for him. When the countess is able, she tells Alexey Alexandrovitch that she has heard from his wife, who is in St. Petersburg. His face immediately assumes the “deathlike rigidity” which expresses his utter helplessness in the matter; the countess looks at him ecstatically and is moved by the greatness of his soul.