Karenin says he hates her

With the ladies gone, Pestsov puts the inequality plainly: a wife's infidelity and a husband's are punished unequally by law and opinion. Karenin answers that the cause lies in the nature of things, and is then told by the champagne-warmed Turovtsyn about Pryachnikov, who fought a duel over his wife and killed his man — 'he behaved like a brick!' Karenin raises his eyebrows and goes to the drawing-room, where Dolly takes him into the schoolroom to a table cut about with penknives. She cannot believe it; he emphasises the word facts and says his wife announced that eight years and a son were an error. Then, tongue loosened, he tells her what he has told nobody: that he doubts everything so much that he hates his son and sometimes believes he is not his. Dolly offers her own story — Anna saved her marriage, she forgave, he must forgive. Karenin answers that he hates Anna with the whole strength of his soul, and that one cannot love those one hates.

The duel Karenin declined is praised to his face by a kind man who does not know, and the debate about unequal punishment runs over the head of the man it is happening to. Dolly's argument is unanswerable and useless: she asks forgiveness from a man who has just admitted he hates. His last line closes the Christian case against him with the accuracy of someone who has tried.