Lydia Ivanovna forces the door

Countess Lydia Ivanovna forces her way in — 'J'ai forcé la consigne!' — and finds him with his head on his hands. He tells her he is broken and can find support nowhere, not even in himself, and that what he cannot bear is not the loss but the shame: the servants, the governess, the bills, and his son's frightened look at dinner. She tells him the forgiveness was not his act but His who dwells in his heart, offers to take the trivial humiliating cares off his shoulders, and appoints herself his housekeeper. Karenin, who has always found this new Petersburg mysticism superfluous and evaded her challenges, listens for the first time with pleasure and no mental rejoinder. She goes straight to Serezha and, watering his cheeks with her tears, tells him his father is a saint and his mother is dead. Her management proves useless in practice — Korney quietly corrects every order — but she converts Karenin, who now believes death does not exist for him and that he fulfils Christ's will while signing documents, and clings to the mock salvation because it lets him despise those who despise him.

The forgiveness of Part Four is converted into a doctrine and thereby destroyed: Karenin felt more joy when he did not think of it as a Higher Power's act. The lie told to Serezha — your mother is dead — is dropped in one sentence between two paragraphs of consolation. Faith here is a device for despising others from a height, and the man vaguely knows it.