His aquiline features were naturally of the melancholic type, and as he stared at the fireplace his expression was profoundly sad.

He did not move for a long time, but suddenly he trembled, as a man does who feels the warning chill in a malarious country when the sun goes down, and two large bright tears ran down his lean dark cheeks and were quickly lost in his grizzled beard.

Either he did not feel them, or he would not take the trouble to dry them, for he sat quite still and kept his eyes on the grate.
Outside it was quite dark and the air was thick, so that the chimney-pots on the opposite roof were hardly visible against the gloomy sky.

It was the time of year when spring seems very near in broad daylight, but as far away as in January when the sun goes down.
Mr.Isidore Bamberger was waiting for a visitor, as his partner Mr.
Van Torp had waited in the same place a month earlier, but he made no preparations for a cheerful meeting, and the cheap japanned tea-caddy, with the brown teapot and the chipped cups and saucers, stood undisturbed in the old-fashioned cupboard in the corner, while the lonely man sat before the cold fireplace and let the tears trickle down his cheeks as they would.
At the double stroke of the spring door-bell, twice repeated, his expression changed as if he had been waked from a dream.

He dried his cheeks roughly with the back of his hand, and his very heavy black eyebrows were drawn down and together, as if the tension of the man's whole nature had been relaxed and was now suddenly restored.