After her recovery, Anna leaves to live her life with Vronsky. Traveling across Europe, they visit the major cities, living in Italy for a short time, before returning to Russia. It seems that nearly all her dreams have true. Her brother Stepan Arkadyich says of her, “She, though, you’ll see how she’s arranged her life, how calm and dignified she is,” (695). Her life is how she’s wanted it. She is no longer under Karenin’s control; she is with the man she adores above all others. She can finally live. So long as she is with Vronsky nothing else matters. So long as he loves her, the rest of the world and all its concerns are irrelevant.
However, the harder Anna tries to hold onto Vronsky, the farther he seems to go from her. “[He] coldly look[ed] at her, her hair, the dress he knew she had put on for him. … He liked it all, but he had already liked it so many times! And the stony, stern expression she had been so afraid of settle on his face,” (667). By all her arts and charms, Anna tries to tie Vronsky inseparably to herself, just as when they first met. Yet, despite her efforts, he keeps pulling away. She cannot live without his love but she cannot seem to keep it now. She has tried, almost smothering him with, love and dependence but still he leaves her. Even when Vronsky says that he cannot live without her, she sees that it is agony for him to be tied to her in the way she desires. “But the look that flashed in his eyes as he spoke those tender words was not only the cold, angry look of a persecuted and embittered man. She saw that look and correctly guessed its meaning. ‘If it is like this, it is a disaster!’ said the look. It was a momentary impression, but she never forgot it,” (668).
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