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His wife's words, confirming his worst suspicions, had sent a

cruel pang to the heart of Alexey Alexandrovitch. That pang was

intensified by the strange feeling of physical pity for her set

up by her tears. But when he was all alone in the carriage Alexey

Alexandrovitch, to his surprise and delight, felt complete relief

both from this pity and from the doubts and agonies of jealousy.

He experienced the sensations of a man who has had a tooth out

after suffering long from toothache. After a fearful agony and a

sense of something huge, bigger than the head itself, being torn

out of his jaw, the sufferer, hardly able to believe in his own

good luck, feels all at once that what has so long poisoned his

existence and enchained his attention, exists no longer, and that

he can live and think again, and take interest in other things

besides his tooth. This feeling Alexey Alexandrovitch was

experiencing. The agony had been strange and terrible, but now it

was over; he felt that he could live again and think of something

other than his wife.