My couple of dozen readers can easily imagine what the poor man felt when he himself ran into the situation we have just described. The terror inspired by those hideous faces and ugly words, the threats of a great lord known never to threaten in vain, the sudden overthrow of a system of peaceful existence which had cost him so many years of study and patience, a predicament from which he could see no way out—all these troubled thoughts buzzed tumultuously together in Don Abbondio's bowed head as he walked along.
(Alessandro Manzoni, The Betrothed)
