Vronsky's toothache

In the slanting shadow of a pile of sacks Vronsky walks up and down like an animal in a cage, turning every twenty paces. Koznyshev, who sees in him a worker in a great cause, offers a letter to Ristich or Milan. Vronsky says there is no one he would less mind meeting and nothing pleasant left in life, and that no introductions are needed to enable one to die. He has energy enough to hack his way into a square and slay or fall, and is glad there is something to spend his life on. As a tool he may be of use, as a man he is a ruin. Watching the wheels of an approaching tender, he remembers the mangled body on the table, still warm, the head intact with its heavy plaits, and on the fixed open eyes an expression repeating her words about his repenting it. He cannot recover the woman he met, also at a railway station; the best moments are poisoned. His toothache stops and sobs distort his face. He masters himself, asks about the latest telegram, and they talk of proclaiming Milan king before the second bell.

Tolstoy runs Vronsky's grief and his toothache through the same nerve, and lets the pain stop only when the memory arrives. Anna's threat is shown to have worked exactly as she designed it: the face on the table has fixed his remorse permanently, and he has no access to any earlier version of her. Then the second bell rings and the two men discuss Serbian politics.