Oblonsky names the rival

Oblonsky tells Levin he has a rival: Count Vronsky, one of the gilded youth of Petersburg, rich, handsome, an aide-de-camp to the Emperor, and by Oblonsky's account clever and bound to go far. He arrived soon after Levin left and is head over ears in love with Kitty. Levin goes pale and at once regrets having opened the subject, his feelings desecrated by the mention of a Petersburg officer. Oblonsky advises him to propose in the classic manner tomorrow morning, then asks advice of his own: what is a man to do who loves his wife but has been fascinated by another woman? Levin answers that it is as incomprehensible as stealing a roll after a full dinner, and confesses a horror of fallen women. Oblonsky charges him with wanting life to be consistent when all its charm is light and shade. Each ends the dinner thinking only of himself.

Vronsky is introduced in the second-hand, admiring terms of a man who admires easily, so the reader meets him as a rumour before a person. Levin's absolutism about fallen women is set down so that Anna's fall can later be tested against it, and the chapter ends on Tolstoy's coldest observation: intimacy consumed as a meal produces estrangement.