Laveuve's unkempt beard straggled over his features, suggesting an old horse that is no longer cropped; his toothless jaws were quite askew, his eyes were vitreous, and his nose seemed to plunge into his mouth.

But above all else one noticed his resemblance to some beast of burden, deformed by hard toil, lamed, worn to death, and now only good for the knackers.
"Ah! the poor fellow," muttered the shuddering priest.

"And he is left to die of hunger, all alone, without any succour?
And not a hospital, not an asylum has given him shelter ?" "Well," resumed Madame Theodore in her sad yet resigned voice, "the hospitals are built for the sick, and he isn't sick, he's simply finishing off, with his strength at an end.

Besides he isn't always easy to deal with.

People came again only lately to put him in an asylum, but he won't be shut up.