“And why did you take this gentleman and me into this room, and not into the other? What?” I thundered at the porter, seizing him by the arm so that he could not escape from me. “What right had you to judge by his appearance that this gentleman must be served in this room, and not in that? Have not all guests who pay, equal rights in hotels? Not only in a republic, but in all the world! Your scurvy republic!⁠ ⁠… Equality, indeed! You would not dare to take an Englishman into this room, not even those Englishmen who have heard this gentleman free of cost; that is, who have stolen from him, each one of them, the few centimes which ought to have been given to him. How did you dare to take us to this room?”

“That room is closed,” said the porter.

“No,” I cried, “that isn’t true; it isn’t closed.”

“Then you know best.”

“I know⁠—I know that you are lying.”

The porter turned his back on me.