Aleksei Alexandrovitch, though he affectionately met his wife, found but
little time to spend with her. The next day several visitors came to
dine with the Karenins. Every moment of Aleksei's life was fully
occupied with his official duties, and he was forced to be strictly
regular and punctual in his arrangements. He was an excellent man, and
an intellectual one, delighting in art, poetry, and music, and loving to
talk of Shakespeare, Raphael, and Beethoven.

Society in St. Petersburg is very united, and Anna Karenina had very
friendly relations with the gay world of fashion, with its dinner
parties and balls. She met Vronsky at several of these brilliant
reunions. He, deeply impressed with her, notwithstanding his connection
with Kitty, went everywhere that he was likely to meet her, and her joy
at meeting him easily betrayed itself in her eyes and her smile. And he
did not refrain from actually making love to Anna on the occasions when
they were able to engage in tête-à-tête conversations. Nor was he
positively repelled. Soon the acquaintance became more and more
intimate. Meantime, Aleksei as usual would come home and, instead of
seeking his wife's society, would bury himself in his library amongst
his books. But suddenly the idea that his wife could form an attachment
to another man filled him with terror. He resolved to remonstrate with
her, but she received his expostulations with laughing and good-humoured
mockery, which entirely frustrated his purpose. He dropped the subject;
yet from that moment a new life began for the husband and wife. There
was no outward sign of the change. Anna continued to meet Vronsky, and
Aleksei felt himself powerless to intervene.

While Vronsky was thus entangling himself with Anna Karenina at St.