The mere
sight of Goupil told an observer that he had made haste to enjoy life,
and had paid dear for his enjoyments. Though very short, his chest and
shoulders were developed at twenty-seven years of age like those of a
man of forty. Legs small and weak, and a broad face, with a cloudy
complexion like the sky before a storm, surmounted by a bald forehead,
brought out still further the oddity of his conformation. His face
seemed as though it belonged to a hunchback whose hunch was inside of
him. One singularity of that pale and sour visage confirmed the
impression of an invisible gobbosity; the nose, crooked and out of
shape like those of many deformed persons, turned from right to left
of the face instead of dividing it down the middle. The mouth,
contracted at the corners, like that of a Sardinian, was always on the
qui vive of irony. His hair, thin and reddish, fell straight, and
showed the skull in many places. His hands, coarse and ill-joined at
the wrists to arms that were far too long, were quick-fingered and
seldom clean. Goupil wore boots only fit for the dust-heap, and raw
silk stockings now of a russet black; his coat and trousers, all
black, and threadbare and greasy with dirt, his pitiful waistcoat with
half the button-moulds gone, an old silk handkerchief which served as
a cravat--in short, all his clothing revealed the cynical poverty to
which his passions had reduced him.
Pages:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28