“Do you feel any pain?” he asked, picking at her tooth with some instrument. “Yes, I do....” Vanda lied. “Shall I remind him?” she thought, “he’ll be sure to remember.... But ... the maid ... what is she standing there for?” Finkel suddenly snorted like a steam-engine straight into her mouth, and said: “I don’t advise you to have a stopping.... Anyhow the tooth is quite useless.” Again he picked at the tooth for a little, and soiled Vanda’s lips and gums with his tobacco-stained fingers. Again he held his breath and dived into her mouth with something cold.... Vanda suddenly felt a terrible pain, shrieked and seized Finkel’s hand.... “Never mind....” he murmured. “Don’t be frightened.... This tooth isn’t any use.” And his tobacco-stained fingers, covered with blood, held up the extracted tooth before her eyes. The maid came forward and put a bowl to her lips. “Rinse your mouth with cold water at home,” said Finkel. “That will make the blood stop.” He stood before her in the attitude of a man impatient to be left alone at last. “Good-bye ...” she said, turning to the door. “H’m! And who’s to pay me for the work?” Finkel asked laughingly. “Ah ... yes!” Vanda recollected, blushed and gave the dentist the rouble she had got for the turquoise ring. When she came into the street she felt still more ashamed than before, but she was not ashamed of her poverty any more. Nor did she notice any more that she hadn’t an elaborate hat or a modish jacket. She walked along the street spitting blood and each red spittle told her about her life, a bad, hard life; about the insults she had suffered and had still to suffer--to-morrow, a week, a year hence--her whole life, till death.... “Oh, how terrible it is!” she whispered. “My God, how terrible!” But the next day she was at the _Renaissance_ and she danced there. She wore a new, immense red hat, a new jacket _à la mode_ and a pair of brown shoes. She was treated to supper by a young merchant from Kazan. OVERWHELMING SENSATIONS This happened not so very long ago in the Moscow Circuit Court. The jurymen, left in court for the night, before going to bed, began a conversation about overwhelming sensations. It was occasioned by someone’s recollection of a witness who became a stammerer and turned grey, owing, as he said, to one dreadful moment. The jurymen decided before going to bed that each one of them should dig into his memories and tell a story. Life is short; but still there is not a single man who can boast that he had not had some dreadful moments in his past. One juryman related how he was nearly drowned. A second told how one night he poisoned his own child, in a place where there was neither doctor nor chemist, by giving the child white copperas in mistake for soda. The child did not die, but the father nearly went mad. A third, not an old man, but sickly, described his two attempts to commit suicide. Once he shot himself; the second time he threw himself in front of a train.