viselike grasp of this man-gorilla with arms and hands of steel; or some
sudden whirl of a stiletto, perhaps, which had missed his heart and
taken his ear. I did not ask then, and I do not know now. It was a badge
of courage, whatever it was--a badge which thrilled and horrified me. As
I looked at the terrible mutilation, I could but recall the hideous
fascination that overcame Josiane, the heroine of Hugo's great novel,
"The Man Who Laughs," when she first caught sight of Gwynplaine's
mouth--slit from ear to ear by the Comprachicos. The outrage on the
Warden was not so grotesque, but the effect was the same.

I moved along the corridor and stood before the beasts. One, an old man
in a long white beard, leathery, sun-tanned face and hooked nose,
clasped the bars with both hands, gazing at us intently. I recognized
his kind the moment I looked at him. He was like my Jonathan Gordon, my
old fisherman who lived up in the Franconia Notch. His coarse, homespun
clothes, dyed brown with walnut-shells, slouch hat crowning his shock of
gray hair, and hickory shirt open at the throat, only heightened the
resemblance; especially the hat canted over one eye. Why he wore the hat
in such a place I could not understand, unless to be ready for departure
when his summons came.

There were eight other beasts besides this old man in the same cage, one
a boy of twenty, who leaned against the iron wall with his hands in his
pockets, his eyes following my every movement. I noticed a new blue
patch on one of his knees, which his mother, doubtless, had sewn with
her own hands, her big-rimmed spectacles on her nose, the tallow dip
lighting the log cabin. I recognized the touch. And the boy. I used to
go swimming with one just like him, forty years ago, in an old
swimming-hole in the back pasture, and hunt for honey that the
bumblebees had stored under the bank.