His soul, his
heart, his reason, every impulse of his will, revolted at the thought
of an infidelity; and yet that brutal, unreasoning infidelity
domineered over his spirit. But the woman was not alone.
The Prince saw one of those figures in which nobody believes when they
are transferred from real life, where we wonder at them, to the
imaginary existence of a more or less literary description. The dress
of this stranger, like that of all Neapolitans, displayed five colors,
if the black of his hat may count for a color; his trousers were
olive-brown, his red waistcoat shone with gilt buttons, his coat was
greenish, and his linen was more yellow than white. This personage
seemed to have made it his business to verify the Neapolitan as
represented by Gerolamo on the stage of his puppet show. His eyes
looked like glass beads. His nose, like the ace of clubs, was horribly
long and bulbous; in fact, it did its best to conceal an opening which
it would be an insult to the human countenance to call a mouth;
within, three or four tusks were visible, endowed, as it seemed, with
a proper motion and fitting into each other.
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