The Minister refreshed the youth, whose inner being was one snarl, with the promise that at supper he would present to him his daughter. He offered him a game; but Alban replied, with a too youthful accent, he never played. He could now roam round through the lanes of the card-tables, and survey whatever he wished. In such a case one posts himself, if there is no one of the company whom he can endure, exactly before or beside the face he detests the most, in order inwardly to lash himself into vexation at every word and every feature of the countenance. Albano might have had many visages in his eye which were, at least in a small degree, intolerable, and by which he might have stationed himself;--nay, no sufficient reasons could have been assigned why he should not have given his whole attention to a certain chaffy, dried up paste-eel, a weakling full of impertinence, who was observing through an eye-glass the card constellations as they came up, while Albano could extend the feelers of his optic nerves even to the spots on the cards in the second apartment;--there would, indeed, have been no reasons, had not the German gentleman been there; before him he must place himself; of him he knew the most and the worst; he stood in distant connection with Schoppe, even with Liana. Furies! in the neighborhood of certain faces the pinions of the soul crumple up and mew themselves as swans' and pigeons' feathers are crushed before eagles' quills; it was as uncomfortable and close for all the innocent feelings in such a roomy breast as Albano's, as it is to a flock of pigeons into whose cote some one has thrown the tail of a polecat. I cannot disguise the fact, he muttered and growled inwardly at all the man did and had,--whether it was his having fingers whose points were finely shaved for the faro-game, and whose nails had been somewhat peeled off by an altogether worse game of _hazard_ yet,--or his looking occasionally through the hair of his eyebrows,--or (only once) squashing a fly by a sudden snapping to of his lips like a fly-trap,--or his uttering now a line of German and now of French, which I expect of good circles, whereas only low people never bring out a German word, except a few, such as _Lansquenet_,[80] _canif_ (kneif), _birambrot_ (bier am brod), excepted. Suffice it, he thought always of Schoppe's fine expression: "There are men and times at which and with whom nothing could be more refreshing to an honest man than--to give them a sound drubbing." Duelling is quite as good, thought the Count.