There was nothing pathetic about him, no suggestion even of poetry, which gives a reverence to suffering, whether mental or physical.

As there was no expression on his face, so also there was no expression in his eyes: no distant longing, no far-off fixedness; nothing, indeed, to awaken sad sympathy.
The only positive thing about him was his rudeness.

Was it natural or cultivated?
No one in Petershof could say.

He had always been as he was; and there was no reason to suppose that he would ever be different.
He was, in fact, like the glacier of which he had such a fine view from his room; like the glacier, an unchanging feature of the neighbourhood.
No one loved it better than the Disagreeable Man did; he watched the sunlight on it, now pale golden, now fiery red.

He loved the sky, the dull grey, or the bright blue.