Did I not lose my beautiful horse Sultan ?" The professor sprang to his full height of four feet and dashed away his tears with a noble gesture of his black-gloved hand.
Base slave that he was to think of his own petty bereavement in the face of her eternal affliction.

He turned to me and bade me mark her serene nobility.

It was a model and an example for him to follow.

He, too, would be brave and present a smiling face to evil fortune.
"Behold! I smile, carissima!" he cried dramatically.
We beheld--and saw his features (smudged with tearstains and the dye from the black gloves which he obviously wore out of respect for the deceased Santa Bianca) contorted into a grimace of hideous imbecility.
"Monsieur," said he, assuming his natural expression which was one of pensive melancholy, "let us change the conversation.

You are a great statesman.