Mary Nikolavna's second letter

Upstairs Kitty sits at the new samovar with Dolly's letter, having made Agatha Mikhaylovna sit down to a cup of tea — from which Levin reads the end of the drama between them: the old woman has been conquered and now loves her. Among the letters is a second from Mary Nikolavna. The first said Nicholas had sent her away and begged Levin to watch over him; this one says she found him, followed him to a provincial post he then lost, and that on the road back to Moscow he fell so ill he will not get up again. Levin says he is going tomorrow. Kitty says she is going too, and the quarrel is fierce: he cites the roads and the inns and the woman she cannot associate with, and finally says he is a sort of slave; she asks why he married if he repents of it. They make it up and travel together. He remains dissatisfied — with her for loving him too much to let him go, with himself for not holding his authority, and with the thought of Kitty in a room with a girl off the streets.

Levin assigns Kitty a small motive — fear of being dull alone — because he cannot imagine the large one, and Tolstoy leaves the misreading standing for the next chapters to correct. His horror at her sharing a room with Mary Nikolavna is the purity he confessed to in Part Four, about to be shown up. Agatha Mikhaylovna leaves before the quarrel, the chapter's only competent act.