At home Karenin learns she had been safely delivered yesterday but she is very ill now. Entering Anna's room he finds Vronsky, face in hands, weeping at her writing table. Karenin's appearance confuses him. "She is dying," Vronsky says, "The doctors say there is no hope. I am entirely in your hands, only let me remain here." Turning from his tears, Karenin approaches Anna's bed. With flushed cheeks, glittering eyes, she talks rapidly in a ringing voice. She speaks of Seriozha, and of her husband who does not himself know how good he is. Karenin's face quivers as he sees her gaze at him with such tender and ecstatic affection as he has never seen in her before.
"Don't be surprised at me," Anna says. "There is another woman in me (who) loved that man and tried to hate you.. .Now I'm my real self, all myself. I'm dying now. Only one thing I want: forgive me, forgive me completely . . .''
Suddenly Karenin gives way to an emotion which gives him a new happiness he has never known. Kneeling, with his head against her arm which burns like fire through his sleeve, he sobs. She calls Vronsky, who, seeing Anna, buries his face in his hands. "Uncover your face!" she orders. "Look at him! He is a saint!" To her husband she cries, "Uncover his face, Alexey Alexandrovitch, I want to see him!" Karenin draws Vronsky's hands away, uncovering a look terrible in its agony and shame. "Give him your hand," says Anna, "Forgive him." Karenin stretches out his hand," while unrestrained tears stream down his cheeks. "Thank God, thank God," murmurs Anna. Then the pains begin again. Crying for morphine, she tosses about on the bed.
Anna had puerperal fever, the doctors said, and ninety-nine cases out of a hundred are fatal. In a coma, Anna's end is moments away. Toward morning she regains consciousness, then sleeps again. The doctors are hopeful.
