Conrad's chief technical device is the employment of a detached but observant narrator who provides two contrasting pictures of the count—first, as a selfpossessed elderly gentleman of natural tastes and moderate appetites, and then as a shaken victim of the cavalier's robbery and violation of his personal selfesteem. The unnamed narrator is both sympathetic and objective in his portrait of the count, and he intrudes his own reactions into the story much less than Conrad's more famous first person narrator, Marlow.

A less obvious demonstration of technical literary skill may be seen in the narrator's careful and memorable recreation of the count's evening with his two fateful encounters with the arrogant robber.

Conrad here does not try to tell the story in the count's own words, which might had led to problems in demonstrating the count's command of English; instead he chooses the more effective method...