By revealing to Tomas her dream about jabbing needles under her fingernails, Teresa unwittingly revealed that she had gone through his desk. If Teresa had been any other woman, Tomas would never have spoken to her again. Aware of that, Teresa said to him, Throw me out! But instead of throwing her out, he seized her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers, because at that moment he himself felt the pain under her fingernails as surely as if the nerves of her fingers led straight to his own brain. Anyone who has failed to benefit from the Devil’s gift of compassion (co-feeling) will condemn Teresa coldly for her deed, because privacy is sacred and drawers containing intimate correspondence are not to be opened. But because compassion was Tomas’s fate (or curse), he felt that he himself had knelt before the open desk drawer, unable to tear his eyes from Sabina’s letter. He understood Teresa, and not only was he incapable of being angry with her, he loved her all the more.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being