Anna and Vronsky in Vrede's garden

Vronsky takes Yashvin's hired carriage to avoid being recognised, and on the way is more conscious of his own body than ever — the ache in his strong leg, his chest moving as he breathes, the scent of brilliantine in the cold air. The same clear August day that left Anna hopeless looks to him newly painted and varnished. In Vrede's garden she tells him she confessed everything to her husband on the way back from the races. His face goes proud and stern, because his first thought is of an inevitable duel; she reads it as offence. She had come hoping he would say 'give up everything and fly with me', in which case she would have abandoned her son. He says instead that he wants to destroy the situation and devote his life to her happiness, and after reading Karenin's letter his look is not firm. Asked to choose between leaving her son and a degrading situation, she rejects the word: she has only his love and is proud of her position, and cannot say why. She goes home.

Everything turns on one sentence Vronsky does not say, and Tolstoy shows us both sides of the silence: she is waiting for the command to flee, he is picturing a duel and remembering the morning's advice not to bind himself. The physical exhilaration of the drive is placed beside her hopelessness on the same afternoon. Her sentence breaks off at 'proud of', which is the truest thing in the scene.