Yûsuf, lolling in the carriage, gnawed his black moustache and cursed the revolutionaries from his heart. He had attained the wisdom which comes easily to middle age, hated disturbance and distrusted novelty. The nervous passion which had marked his youth still dwelt in him; but he reserved its transports for the calls of private life; having another wife besides the Englishwoman, and two concubines, whom he kept in the provincial centre whither public business often called him. Politics had been for him a well-ruled game, on which a man would be a fool to waste vitality. As a functionary, he had lounged on sofas, telling beads, dictating orders to his secretaries, at ease except when called before superiors; until this military rising scared his soul. Its swiftness and success seemed downright fiendish.