Anna Karenina Part 6, Chapters 26-32

The men attend a conference on farming. The women are at home. Anna is in a bad situation, feeling so lonely that she now takes drugs (morphine) to fall asleep. Meanwhile, Kitty is in Moscow, happily waiting for her child to be born.

At the conference, Levin and Vronsky disagree on almost everything to do with farming. Vronsky is a new type of farmer, a modern kind who indulges in the industrialization of farming. It doesn't occur to Vronsky to make his peasants equal partners. Levin doesn't see farming as "industry." He wants equality on the land. During the conference, Vronsky gets a note from Anna saying the baby is ill and he must return home immediately. He returns home to find that the baby was never ill and that Anna manipulated him. He is furious. Anna doesn't know what to do with herself and gets worried that Vronsky is angry at her. She writes to Karenin, asking for divorce on any grounds.

"And though she felt sure that his love for her was waning, there was nothing she could do, she could not in any way alter her relations to him. Just as before, only by love and by charm could she keep him. And so, just as before, only by occupation in the day, by morphine at night, could she stifle the fearful thought of what would be if he ceased to love her." Part 6, Chapter 32, pg. 695

She awaits Karenin's response, expecting to marry Vronsky just as Kitty and Levin are preparing for parenthood.