Joseph Conrad

The Secret Agent

"Meanwhile, the Assistant Commissioner was already giving his order to a waiter in a little Italian restaurant round the corner --- one of those traps for the hungry, long and narrow, baited with a perspective of mirrors and white napery: without air but with an atmosphere of their own --- an atmosphere of fraudulent cookery mocking an abject mankind in the most pressing of its miserable necessities. In this immoral atmosphere the Assistant Commissioner, reflecting upon his enterprise, seemed to lose some more of his identity.  He had a sense of loneliness, of evil freedom. It was rather pleasant. When, after paying for his short meal, he stood up and waited for his change, he saw himself in the sheet of glass, and was struck by his foreign appearance. He contemplated his own image with a melancholy and inquisitive gaze, then by sudden inspiration raised the collar of his jacket. This arrangement appeared to him commendable, and he completed it by giving an upward twist to the ends of his black moustache. He was satisfied by this subtle modification of his personal aspect caused by these small changes. "That'll do well," he thought. "I'll get a little wet, a little splashed ---"

 (Bantam Books edition: pages 106 & 107, published 1984 ISBN: 0-553-21134-X , originally published by Methuen & Co. in 1907) 

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