In the course
of the next hour I had become, if not personally, at least optically
acquainted with nearly a dozen others.
Somewhat overawed by the animals Harree and Pompom (but nevertheless
managing to overawe a goodly portion of his fellow-captives) an
extraordinary human being paced the _cour_. On gazing for the first time
directly at him I experienced a feeling of nausea. A figure inclined to
corpulence, dressed with care, remarkable only above the neck--and then
what a head! It was large, and had a copious mop of limp hair combed back
from the high forehead--hair of a disagreeable blond tint, dutch-cut
behind, falling over the pinkish soft neck almost to the shoulders. In
this pianist's or artist's hair, which shook en masse when the owner
walked, two large and outstanding and altogether brutal white ears tried
to hide themselves. The face, a cross between classic Greek and Jew, had
a Reynard expression, something distinctly wily and perfectly
disagreeable. An equally with the hair blond moustache--or rather
mustachios projectingly important--waved beneath the prominent nostrils,
and served to partially conceal the pallid mouth, weak and large, whose
lips assumed from time to time a smile which had something almost foetal
about it.
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