But he saw neither its figures nor its words.

The interrogation, "Surrender Fausse Riviere ?" appeared to hang between his eyes and the paper, and when his resolution tried to answer "Yes," he saw red flags; he heard the auctioneer's drum; he saw his kinsmen handing house-keys to strangers; he saw the old servants of the great family standing in the marketplace; he saw kinswomen pawning their plate; he saw his clerks (Brahmins, Mandarins, Grandissimes) standing idle and shabby in the arcade of the Cabildo and on the banquettes of Maspero's and the Veau-qui-tete; he saw red-eyed young men in the Exchange denouncing a man who, they said, had, ostensibly for conscience's sake, but really for love, forced upon the woman he had hoped to marry a fortune filched from his own kindred.

He saw the junto of doctors in Frowenfeld's door charitably deciding him insane; he saw the more vengeful of his family seeking him with half-concealed weapons; he saw himself shot at in the rue Royale, in the rue Toulouse, and in the Place d'Armes: and, worst of all, missed.
But he wiped his forehead, and the writing on the paper became, in a measure, visible.

He read: Total mortgages on the lands of all the Grandissimes $-- Total present value of same, titles at buyers' risk -- Cash, goods, and accounts -- Fausse Riviere Plantation account -- There were other items, but he took up the edge of the paper mechanically, pushed it slowly away from him, leaned back in his chair and again laid his hands upon his face.
"Suppose I retain Fausse Riviere," he said to himself, as if he had not said it many times before.
Then he saw memoranda that were not on any paper before him--such a mortgage to be met on such a date; so much from Fausse Riviere Plantation account retained to protect that mortgage from foreclosure; such another to be met on such a date--so much more of same account to protect it.

He saw Aurora and Clotilde Nancanou, with anguished faces, offering woman's pleadings to deaf constables.