fairly smooth except for the gash at the corner of his mouth, which had
not healed properly. But the left side! He had let those damned city
folk tell him a whole lot of nonsense about the left side of his face. A
bunch of damned scoundrels they were, bent upon making fools of poor
peasants, in wartime just the same as in peacetime--all of them, the
great doctor as well as the fine ladies in their dazzling white gowns
and with their silly affected talk. Heaven knows it was no great trick
to bamboozle a simple coachman, who had managed with only the greatest
pains to learn a bit of reading and writing. They had smiled and
simpered at him and were so nice and had promised him such a paradise.
And now, here he was helpless, left all alone to himself, a lost man.

With a furious curse, he tore off his hat and threw it on the seat.

Was that the face of a human being? Was it permitted to do such a thing
to a man? His nose looked like a patchwork of small dice of different
colors. His mouth was awry, and the whole left cheek was like a piece of
bloated raw meat, red and criss-crossed with deep scars. Ugh! How ugly!
A fright! And besides, instead of a cheekbone, he had a long hollow,
deep enough to hold a man's finger. And it was for this he had let
himself be tortured so? For this he had let himself be enticed seventeen
times, like a patient sheep, into that confounded room with the glass
walls and the shining instruments? A shudder ran down his back at the
recollection of the tortures he had gone through with clenched teeth,
just to look like a human being again and be able to go back home to his
bride.

And now he _was_ home.

The train pulled out of the tunnel, the whistle blew, and the dwarf