One singularity of that pale and sour visage confirmed the impression of an invisible gobbosity; the nose, crooked and out of shape like those of many deformed persons, turned from right to left of the face instead of dividing it down the middle.

The mouth, contracted at the corners, like that of a Sardinian, was always on the qui vive of irony.

His hair, thin and reddish, fell straight, and showed the skull in many places.

His hands, coarse and ill-joined at the wrists to arms that were far too long, were quick-fingered and seldom clean.

Goupil wore boots only fit for the dust-heap, and raw silk stockings now of a russet black; his coat and trousers, all black, and threadbare and greasy with dirt, his pitiful waistcoat with half the button-moulds gone, an old silk handkerchief which served as a cravat--in short, all his clothing revealed the cynical poverty to which his passions had reduced him.