First Part Chapter 8

I blushed and felt quite snubbed. I was on the point of making some
pert answer, when I remembered what our dear mother in God used to say
to us, and I replied instead: "It would be a kindness to tell me if you have anything to complain
of." A tremor passed through him, the blood rose in his olive cheeks; he
replied in a voice of some emotion:

"Religion must have taught you, better than I can, to respect the
unhappy. Had I been a don in Spain, and lost everything in the
triumph of Ferdinand VII., your witticism would be unkind; but if I am
only a poor teacher of languages, is it not a heartless satire?
Neither is worthy of a young lady of rank."

I took his hand, saying: "In the name of religion also, I beg you to pardon me."

He bowed, opened my Don Quixote, and sat down.

This little incident disturbed me more than the harvest of
compliments, gazing and pretty speeches on my most successful evening.
During the lesson I watched him attentively, which I could do the more
safely, as he never looks at me.

As the result of my observations, I made out that the tutor, whom we
took to be forty, is a young man, some years under thirty. My
governess, to whom I had handed him over, remarked on the beauty of
his black hair and of his pearly teeth. As to his eyes, they are
velvet and fire; but he is plain and insignificant. Though the
Spaniards have been described as not a cleanly people, this man is
most carefully got up, and his hands are whiter than his face. He
stoops a little, and has an extremely large, oddly-shaped head. His
ugliness, which, however, has a dash of piquancy, is aggravated by
smallpox marks, which seam his face. His forehead is very prominent,
and the shaggy eyebrows meet, giving a repellent air of harshness.