Morphia, and two beings she loves

Pressed about the divorce, Anna says she does not want to speak of it, claims to be cheerful, dismisses Veslovsky as a boy entirely in her hands — then breaks. Not a day or an hour passes without her thinking of it and blaming herself, and she cannot sleep without morphia. Karenin is under Lydia Ivanovna's influence now and would refuse; and supposing he consented, she would have to humiliate herself by writing to the man she hates and acknowledges she has wronged, and then they would not give her Serezha, who would grow up despising her. She loves two beings equally and more than herself, and each excludes the other. 'You in your purity cannot understand all I suffer.' Left alone, Dolly says her prayers and finds her own children precious; Anna takes drops of morphia and goes cheerfully to Vronsky, who watches for some trace of the talk and finds only her beauty. Next morning Dolly leaves. Philip the coachman reports that they were given two bushels of oats — a stingy gentleman — and that it seemed dull. At home Dolly praises them warmly and will hear nothing against them.

The morphia is dropped into the chapter without comment, between a confession and a cheerful entrance, and it settles what the happiness is made of. Anna's deadlock is stated exactly and is genuinely insoluble: the divorce costs her the son. Tolstoy closes on two verdicts — the coachman's two bushels of oats, and Dolly at home defending them all with entire sincerity.