Page 586 - the-idiot

the woman began whimpering. The man’s face seemed tome
to be refined and even pleasant. He was dark-complexioned,
and about twenty-eight years of age; he wore black whiskers,
and his lip and chin were shaved. He looked morose, but
with a sort of pride of expression. A curious scene followed.
‘There are people who find satisfaction in their own
touchy feelings, especially when they have just taken the
deepest offence; at such moments they feel that they would
rather be offended than not. These easily-ignited natures, if
they are wise, are always full of remorse afterwards, when
they reflect that they have been ten times as angry as they
need have been.
‘The gentleman before me gazed at me for some seconds
in amazement, and his wife in terror; as though there was
something alarmingly extraordinary in the fact that any-
one could come to see them. But suddenly he fell upon me
almost with fury; I had had no time to mutter more than a
couple of words; but he had doubtless observed that I was
decently dressed and, therefore, took deep offence because
I had dared enter his den so unceremoniously, and spy out
the squalor and untidiness of it.
‘Of course he was delighted to get hold of someone upon
whom to vent his rage against things in general.
‘For a moment I thought he would assault me; he grew
so pale that he looked like a woman about to have hysterics;
his wife was dreadfully alarmed.
‘How dare you come in so? Be off!’ he shouted, trem-
bling all over with rage and scarcely able to articulate the
words. Suddenly, however, he observed his pocketbook in