This section presents the parallel careers of Levin and Anna in striking contrast. As Levin embarks to fulfill his life through his courtship and marriage to Kitty, we see his career as an affirmation of his life. This part of his story already points to the happy ending in his struggle to overcome death. Anna's imminent death in this section, however, portends disaster.
Just as death reverses life, Anna's deathbed crisis reverses the process of her love affair. From this point on, we see the slow-motion deterioration of her relationship with Vronsky and its corresponding effect on her lover and husband.
As Vronsky and Karenin exchange roles during this crisis, they both achieve an emotional intensity neither have previously experienced. At the point of losing Anna, Vronsky rises to the pinnacle of his love but finds himself unable to cope with his humiliation and debasement. With Karenin exalted, Vronsky's "code of prescribed behavior" offers no solution to his present crisis. His life based on regimented social values to sustain his ego, Vronsky cannot countenance this sudden loss of honor. He responds by trying to destroy his suddenly meaningless life now that it can no longer conform to formulistic interpretation. Tolstoy shows us that Vronsky is too rigid to sustain the intensity of his passion. The attempted suicide tells us of the ultimate futility of Vronsky's attempt to maintain the emotional depth of love that Anna demands from him.
