He had come out of a highly hygienic prison round like a tub, with an enormous stomach and distended cheeks of a pale, semi-transparent complexion, as though for fifteen years the servants of an outraged society had made a point of stuffing him with fattening foods in a damp and lightless cellar.

And ever since he had never managed to get his weight down as much as an ounce.
It was said that for three seasons running a very wealthy old lady had sent him for a cure to Marienbad--where he was about to share the public curiosity once with a crowned head--but the police on that occasion ordered him to leave within twelve hours.

His martyrdom was continued by forbidding him all access to the healing waters.

But he was resigned now.
With his elbow presenting no appearance of a joint, but more like a bend in a dummy's limb, thrown over the back of a chair, he leaned forward slightly over his short and enormous thighs to spit into the grate.
"Yes! I had the time to think things out a little," he added without emphasis.

"Society has given me plenty of time for meditation." On the other side of the fireplace, in the horse-hair arm-chair where Mrs Verloc's mother was generally privileged to sit, Karl Yundt giggled grimly, with a faint black grimace of a toothless mouth.