Respect in the empty place

Anna meets Vronsky meekly; he sees the trunks and says 'Ah, that's right!' as one speaks to a child who has stopped being capricious, and she masters her wish to fight. She proposes they stop waiting for the divorce and leave. He describes the dinner and the Queen of Sweden's swimming instructress, then mentions that Sunday he must see maman — and becomes confused, which confirms her suspicion of Princess Sorokina, who lives near Moscow with the Countess Vronskaya. She demands Monday or nothing, throws Hannah and 'unnatural' back at him, and tells him respect was invented to fill the empty place where love ought to be. Vronsky asks why she is testing his patience and says there are limits; she sees hatred in his face and leaves. Alone before the looking-glass, taking her rings off and on, she remembers asking after her confinement 'Why did I not die?' and understands that her death would save everyone and make him repent. He comes in and agrees to go the day after tomorrow; she sobs that she is a stone round his neck, and her jealousy turns to passionate tenderness.

The quarrel runs on a question about travel dates and ends with the idea that will kill her, arrived at not as despair but as a solution — a fixed smile of self-pity, rings coming off and going on, and a rehearsal of his grief from several points of view. Tolstoy then has them reconcile, which is worse than if they had not: the thought is now available.