Unpardonably happy, and bored

Anna is unpardonably happy. Her husband's grief is too terrible to dwell on and has bought her too much joy for repentance; remembering it she feels what a drowning man feels who has shaken off another who clung to him. She had resolved that since she caused his unhappiness she would not profit by it — would refuse the divorce and go on suffering the loss of her name and her son — and finds she is not suffering at all. They avoid Russian ladies and meet only people who pretend to understand them. The baby is sweet and she rarely thinks of Serezha. The better she knows Vronsky the more she loves him, and she is frightened by her own rapture and hides her sense of inferiority, fearing nothing so much as losing his love; his unfailing solicitude is at times a burden. Vronsky, having got everything he wanted, finds it one grain of the anticipated mountain, and learns the eternal error of supposing happiness lies in gratified wishes. Boredom arrives. He takes up painting, imitates the French School readily, and paints Anna as an Italian.

The drowning image is Anna's own and it acquits her of nothing — she states plainly that another man went under and that it is better not to recall the details. Her happiness and Vronsky's boredom are set in adjacent paragraphs, and the asymmetry is the whole later plot. His painting is diagnosed precisely: inspiration taken from art rather than life, which is why it comes so easily.