The light of a candle revealed the sardonic
profile and yellow cranium of an old man; he remembered now that he
had won from him, and had never proposed that the other should have
his revenge; a little further on he saw a pretty woman, whose lively
advances he had met with frigid coolness; there was not a face there
that did not reproach him with some wrong done, inexplicably to all
appearance, but the real offence in every case lay in some
mortification, some invisible hurt dealt to self-love. He had
unintentionally jarred on all the small susceptibilities of the circle
round about him.
His guests on various occasions, and those to whom he had lent his
horses, had taken offence at his luxurious ways; their ungraciousness
had been a surprise to him; he had spared them further humiliations of
that kind, and they had considered that he looked down upon them, and
had accused him of haughtiness ever since. He could read their inmost
thoughts as he fathomed their natures in this way. Society with its
polish and varnish grew loathsome to him. He was envied and hated for
his wealth and superior ability; his reserve baffled the inquisitive;
his humility seemed like haughtiness to these petty superficial
natures.
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