None but those who were most intimate with Alexey Alexandrovitch

knew that, while on the surface the coldest and most reasonable

of men, he had one weakness quite opposed to the general trend of

his character. Alexey Alexandrovitch could not hear or see a

child or woman crying without being moved. The sight of tears

threw him into a state of nervous agitation, and he utterly lost

all power of reflection. The chief secretary of his department

and his private secretary were aware of this, and used to warn

women who came with petitions on no account to give way to tears,

if they did not want to ruin their chances. "He will get angry,

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and will not listen to you," they used to say. And as a fact, in

such cases the emotional disturbance set up in Alexey

Alexandrovitch by the sight of tears found expression in hasty

anger. "I can do nothing. Kindly leave the room!" he would

commonly cry in such cases.

When returning from the races Anna had informed him of her

relations with Vronsky, and immediately afterwards had burst into

tears, hiding her face in her hands, Alexey Alexandrovitch, for

all the fury aroused in him against her, was aware at the same

time of a rush of that emotional disturbance always produced in

him by tears. Conscious of it, and conscious that any expression

of his feelings at that minute would be out of keeping with the

position, he tried to suppress every manifestation of life in

himself, and so neither stirred nor looked at her. This was what

had caused that strange expression of deathlike rigidity in his

face which had so impressed Anna.

When they reached the house he helped her to get out of the

carriage, and making an effort to master himself, took leave of

her with his usual urbanity, and uttered that phrase that bound

him to nothing; he said that tomorrow he would let her know his

decision.

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.




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