made still keener by the strange sensation of physical pity for her, caused by the sight of her tears. Yet, as he sat alone in his carriage, Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, to his surprise and pleasure, was conscious of an absolute freedom, not only from that sense of pity, but also from the doubts and the pangs of jealousy which had of late been tormenting him.
He experienced the feelings of a man who has been suffering for a long time from the toothache. After one terrible moment of agony, and the sensation of something enormous — greater than the head itself — which is wrenched out of the jaw, the patient, hardly able to believe in his good fortune, suddenly discovers that the pain that has been poisoning his life so long has ceased, and that he can live and think and interest himself in something besides his aching tooth.
This feeling Alekseï Aleksandrovitch now experienced. The pain had been strange and terrible. But now it was over. He felt that he could live again, and think of something besides his wife.
"Without honor, without heart, without religion, an abandoned woman! I have always known this and I have always seen it, though out of pity for her I tried to shut my eyes to it," he said to himself.
And it really seemed to him that he had always seen this. He recalled many details of their past lives; and things which had once seemed innocent in his eyes, now clearly came up as proofs that she had always been corrupt.
"I made a mistake when I joined my life to hers; but my mistake was not my fault, and therefore I ought not to be unhappy. I am not the guilty one," said he, "but she is. But I have nothing more to do with her. She does not exist for me."....
All that would befall her as well as his son, toward whom also his feelings underwent a similar change, now ceased to occupy him. The only thing that did occupy him now was the question how to make his escape from this wretched crisis in a manner at once wise, correct, and honorable for himself, and having cleared himself
