Coquetry had never been his sin, and often weeks passed without his
looking in a mirror, so indifferent was he when making his toilet.
However, as a young boy he sometimes looked in his small glass, asking
himself what he would become, and he could now recall his looks--an
energetic face with clearly drawn features, a physiognomy open and frank,
without being pretty, but not disagreeable. His beard had concealed all
this; but now that it was gone, he said to himself without much
reflection that he would find again, without doubt, the boy he
remembered.

What he saw in the glass was a forehead lined transversely; oblique
eyebrows, raised at the inside extremity, and a mouth with tightened lips
turned down at the corners; furrows were hollowed in the cheeks; and the
whole physiognomy, harassed, ravaged, expressed hardness.

What had become of that of the young man of other days? He had before
him the man that life had made, and of whom the violent contractions of
the muscles of the face had modelled the expression.

"Truly, the mouth of an assassin!" he murmured.

Then, looking at his shaved head, he added with a smile:

"And perhaps that of one condemned to death, whose toilet has just been
made for the guillotine."




CHAPTER XXIX