physiognomist, she might have noticed from his face how utterly
indifferent he was to her and her embroidery, which he regarded with
puckered eyes and screwed-up mouth.

"No good. Those flowers are too big; it is the sort of thing the
Wallachian peasants stitch on to their shirts." And with that he took up
Clementina's scissors from the work-table and deliberately snipped into
little bits the whole of the difficult piece of work which the worthy
woman had been slaving away at for a week and more, finally pitching it
away contemptuously while she sat there and stared at him dumfoundered.

"John, John!" said the old man in mild remonstrance.

"To show me such rubbish when I am mad! When I am wroth! When I am
beside myself with fury!"

"Why are you angry, and with whom?"

John went on as if he did not mean to tell the cause of his anger. He
flung himself into an armchair, crossed his legs, plunged his hands into
the depths of his pockets and then, starting up, began to pace the room
again.

"I am furious."

"Then what's the matter?" enquired the old man anxiously.

John again flung himself into an armchair and cocked one leg over the
arm of the chair: "It is all that good-for-nothing Hátszegi!" he cried.
"The fellow is a villain, a scoundrel, a robber!"