All the habits and rules of his life that had seemed so firm, had turned out suddenly false and inapplicable.

The betrayed husband, who had figured till that time as a pitiful creature, an incidental and somewhat ludicrous obstacle to his happiness, had suddenly been summoned by her herself, elevated to an awe-inspiring pinnacle, and on the pinnacle that husband had shown himself, not malignant, not false, not ludicrous, but kind and straightforward and large.

Vronsky could not but feel this, and the parts were suddenly reversed.

Vronsky felt his elevation and his own abasement, his truth and his own falsehood.

He felt that the husband was magnanimous even in his sorrow, while he had been base and petty in his deceit.