Thus he was not exposed that evening to the necessity
of dissembling his agitation before the calm ignorance of the other
inmates. He was glad of it. It seemed to him that if he had to open his
lips he would break out into horrible and aimless imprecations, start
breaking furniture, smashing china and glass. From the moment he opened
the private door and while ascending the twenty-eight steps of a winding
staircase, giving access to the corridor on which his room opened, he
went through a horrible and humiliating scene in which an infuriated
madman with blood-shot eyes and a foaming mouth played inconceivable
havoc with everything inanimate that may be found in a well-appointed
dining-room. When he opened the door of his apartment the fit was over,
and his bodily fatigue was so great that he had to catch at the backs
of the chairs while crossing the room to reach a low and broad divan
on which he let himself fall heavily. His moral prostration was still
greater. That brutality of feeling which he had known only when
charging the enemy, sabre in hand, amazed this man of forty, who did not
recognize in it the instinctive fury of his menaced passion.
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