If he did not succeed, he would destroy her,--it is so natural to destroy that which we cannot possess, to deny what we cannot comprehend, to insult that which we envy.
On the morrow, Wilfrid, laden with ideas which the extraordinary events of the previous night naturally awakened in his mind, resolved to question David, and went to find him on the pretext of asking after Seraphita's health.

Though Monsieur Becker spoke of the old servant as falling into dotage, Wilfrid relied on his own perspicacity to discover scraps of truth in the torrent of the old man's rambling talk.
David had the immovable, undecided, physiognomy of an octogenarian.
Under his white hair lay a forehead lined with wrinkles like the stone courses of a ruined wall; and his face was furrowed like the bed of a dried-up torrent.

His life seemed to have retreated wholly to the eyes, where light still shone, though its gleams were obscured by a mistiness which seemed to indicate either an active mental alienation or the stupid stare of drunkenness.

His slow and heavy movements betrayed the glacial weight of age, and communicated an icy influence to whoever allowed themselves to look long at him,--for he possessed the magnetic force of torpor.

His limited intelligence was only roused by the sight, the hearing, or the recollection of his mistress.