the soul sent into them an expression of malignancy, would have
frightened both judges and criminals, or any others whom nothing
usually affrights.

The mouth, toothless except for a few black fangs, was threatening;
the saliva made a foam within it, which did not, however, pass the
pale thin lips. Cerizet, a short man, less spare than shrunken,
endeavored to remedy the defects of his person by his clothes, and
although his garments were not those of opulence, he kept them in a
condition of neatness which may even have increased his forlorn
appearance. Everything about him seemed dubious; his age, his nose,
his glance inspired doubt. It was impossible to know if he were
thirty-eight or sixty; if his faded blue trousers, which fitted him
well, were of a coming or a past fashion. His boots, worn at the
heels, but scrupulously blacked, resoled for the third time, and very
choice, originally, may have trodden in their day a ministerial
carpet. The frock coat, soaked by many a down-pour, with its
brandebourgs, the frogs of which were indiscreet enough to show their
skeletons, testified by its cut to departed elegance. The satin
stock-cravat fortunately concealed the shirt, but the tongue of the
buckle behind the neck had frayed the satin, which was re-satined,
that is, re-polished, by a species of oil distilled from the wig. In
the days of its youth the waistcoat was not, of course, without
freshness, but it was one of those waistcoats, bought for four francs,
which come from the hooks of the ready-made clothing dealer. All these
things were carefully brushed, and so was the shiny and misshapen hat.
They harmonized with each other, even to the black gloves which covered
the hands of this subaltern Mephistopheles, whose whole anterior life
may be summed up in a single phrase:--