After leaving her husband and recovering her health, Anna Karenina feels “unpardonably happy” about her life. The thought of her husband’s unhappiness should poison that happiness, but it does not. While her husband’s wretchedness is too awful for her to think about, Alexey Alexandrovitch’s misery gives her too much happiness to feel any regret. Everything that happened after her illness seems a dream to her now. The reconciliation with her husband, the subsequent breakdown of that reconciliation, the news of Vronsky’s self-inflicted wound, the preparations for divorce, the departure from her home, the parting from her son—all of these things are like a delirious dream. She feels nothing but repulsion for these things. She committed an evil action and someone was badly damaged, but it was the only way to escape and is not worth brooding about today.

One reflection consoles her. Anna Karenina has made her husband wretched, but she does not want to profit from his misery. She, too, shall suffer. She has lost her good name and her son. There will be no happiness for her; she has done wrong and will suffer the consequences. However sincerely she believes this, though, Anna Karenina is not suffering.

There has been no shame, for they have never placed themselves in circumstances which might cause shame; everywhere they have met people who pretend to understand their circumstances. Even losing her son has not been particularly traumatic, since her baby girl has totally won her heart and she rarely even thinks about him. Anna Karenina’s desire for life grows each day, as does her love for Vronsky. She loves him for loving her so completely and sacrificially, and everything he does and is seems noble to her. Anna Karenina is perfectly happy.

Vronsky, on the other hand, is not perfectly happy. The realization of his desires has given him no more than “a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected.” For a short time after they left Russia, Vronsky reveled in his freedom, something he had never really experienced in his life. Soon, though, he is aware of a kind of ennui, a desire for desires, which has sprung up inside him. Unconsciously, Vronsky begins to grasp at every passing caprice, mistaking it for a desire and an object to be achieved.

Sixteen hours each day must be filled. Vronsky can no longer participate in the bachelor pursuits and entertainments as he had done on previous visits abroad; the one time he attempted a late supper with bachelor friends, it led to a sudden and disproportional attack of depression in Anna Karenina. Because of their irregular position, he and his lover are not able to associate freely or often with members of Russian or foreign society; and visiting the places of interest wherever they were do not hold much interest for either of them.

Like a starving man seeking nourishment in anything he eats, Vronsky seeks satisfaction in politics, books, and finally paintings. As a child, Vronsky had an aptitude for painting and collected many forms of art. Paintings soon captured his full interest, and he now has a deep appreciation for art. He has begun to paint, and his portrait of Anna Karenina has been deemed extremely successful by everyone who has seen it.