His hands were large, but very skilful, and the long straight fingers were discoloured by contact with the substances he used in his experiments.
He was jealous by nature, rather than suspicious.

He had been jealous of his wife while she had lived, though a more devoted woman never fell to the lot of a lucky husband.

Often, for weeks together, he had locked the door upon her and taken the key with him every morning when he left the house, though his furnaces were almost exactly opposite, on the other side of the narrow canal, so that by coming to the door he could have spoken with her at her window.

But instead of doing this he used to look through a little grated opening which he had caused to be made in the wall of the glass-house; and when his wife was seated at her window, at her embroidery, he could watch her unseen, for she was beautiful and he loved her.

One day he saw a stranger standing by the water's edge, gazing at her, and he went out and threw the man into the canal.