Chapter 146 — Anna Karenina

Karenin had forgotten Lydia Ivanovna; she had not forgotten him. At his bitterest moment she enters the study without announcement and finds him with his head in his hands. She forces the consigne, says she has heard all, calls him dear friend, and prepares to cry until he kisses her hand. He confesses he is crushed, annihilated, no longer a man, and cannot find strength within.

She offers love and mystical support, reframing his forgiveness as Christ's work so he need not be ashamed. He speaks of pinpricks: servants, governess, accounts, Seryozha's afraid glance, the blue bill for hat and ribbons. She offers to be housekeeper; he presses her hand gratefully. She prays; he hears her words with pleasure for the first time.

She takes household charge yet practical affairs fail and Korney really runs things. Her moral support and fervor turn him toward a new Petersburg Christianity that lets him believe death does not apply to perfect faith and that signing papers is doing God's will. He dimly senses this faith is shallower than the happiness of spontaneous forgiveness, yet humiliation makes the elevated imaginary standpoint necessary. He clings to delusion of salvation as his one rescue from contempt.