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,
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.