Anna's journey back to her home represents her retreat from the emotional stimulation she experienced through Vronsky. Her attempt at flight, however, is interrupted by the presence of the young officer who takes the same train. The snowstorm in which they meet corresponds to the stormy state of their emotions.
Anna's suddenly perceived dissatisfaction with her husband's appearance and manner, and her slight disappointment upon first seeing her son, shows her perceptions of the life she has been familiar with have already been changed under the influence of this passion to which she is still unawakened. But her feverish state passes when she reassumes her old habits and the "causeless shame" she felt during her journey vanishes.
The character of Karenin, with its compulsiveness and dullness, shows that he is a poor foil for Anna's vivacity and love of life. Tolstoy also shows their relationship is routine and erotically incomplete as "precisely at twelve o'clock," Karenin bids Anna to bed. She follows, "but her face had none of the eagerness which, [in Moscow] fairly flashed from her eyes and her smile; on the contrary, now the fire seemed quenched in her, hidden somewhere far away."
