The radial and temporal dependences of the metastable 6 3P2 (Xem) and resonance 6 3P1 (Xer) state densities are measured in the active phase and afterglow of pulsed discharge in xenon by laser absorption technique at pressure 10 Torr and currents 200–500 mA. It is found that the densities grow by a factor of 25 during the transition from the active discharge phase to the afterglow and there is no decrease of the density after switching the field off. It is shown that the collisional-radiative recombination prevails over the dissociative recombination because of high electron density and relatively low electron temperature in a constricted discharge. The electron cooling after the field switching-off is caused mainly by electron–ion collisions whereas the electron–atom elastic collisions are less effective due to the Ramsauer effect. The quantitative modelling of the active phase and afterglow is performed on the basis of the time-dependent system of balance equations for densities of excited atoms and charged particles, as well as electron temperature. The results of the modelling reflect all peculiarities of the excited atom behaviour both in the active phase and afterglow.