Descriptions of men:
The Judge from "A Commission in Lunacy" :
M. Popinot, as is seemly for a magistrate, was always dressed in black
--a style which contributed to make him ridiculous in the eyes of
those who were in the habit of judging everything from a superficial
examination. Men who are jealous of maintaining the dignity required
by this color ought to devote themselves to constant and minute care
of their person; but our dear M. Popinot was incapable of forcing
himself to the puritanical cleanliness which black demands. His
trousers, always threadbare, looked like camlet--the stuff of which
attorneys\' gowns are made; and his habitual stoop set them, in time,
in such innumerable creases, that in places they were traced with
lines, whitish, rusty, or shiny, betraying either sordid avarice, or
the most unheeding poverty. His coarse worsted stockings were twisted
anyhow in his ill-shaped shoes. His linen had the tawny tinge acquired
by long sojourn in a wardrobe, showing that the late lamented Madame
Popinot had had a mania for much linen; in the Flemish fashion,
perhaps, she had given herself the trouble of a great wash no more
than twice a year. The old man\'s coat and waistcoat were in harmony
with his trousers, shoes, stockings, and linen. He always had the luck
of his carelessness; for, the first day he put on a new coat, he
unfailingly matched it with the rest of his costume by staining it
with incredible promptitude. The good man waited till his housekeeper
told him that his hat was too shabby before buying a new one. His
necktie was always crumpled and starchless, and he never set his dog-
eared shirt collar straight after his judge\'s bands had disordered it.
He took no care of his gray hair, and shaved but twice a week. He
never wore gloves, and generally kept his hands stuffed into his empty
trousers\' pockets; the soiled pocket-holes, almost always torn, added
a final touch to the slovenliness of his person.
A "worthy old gentleman" from "The Marriage Contract" :
Maitre Mathias was a worthy old gentleman sixty-nine years of age, who
took great pride in his forty years\' exercise of the profession. His
huge gouty feet were encased in shoes with silver buckles, making a
ridiculous termination to legs so spindling, with knees so bony, that
when he crossed them they made you think of the emblems on a
tombstone. His puny little thighs, lost in a pair of wide black
breeches fastened with buckles, seemed to bend beneath the weight of a
round stomach and a torso developed, like that of most sedentary
persons, into a stout barrel, always buttoned into a green coat with
square tails, which no man could remember to have ever seen new. His
hair, well brushed and powdered, was tied in a rat\'s tail that lay
between the collar of his coat and that of his waistcoat, which was
white, with a pattern of flowers. With his round head, his face the
color of a vine-leaf, his blue eyes, a trumpet nose, a thick-lipped
mouth, and a double-chin, the dear old fellow excited, whenever he
appeared among strangers who did not know him, that satirical laugh
which Frenchmen so generously bestow on the ludicrous creations Dame
Nature occasionally allows herself, which Art delights in exaggerating
under the name of caricatures.
A slow living suicide:
Alencon now witnessed a suicide that was slower and quite differently
pitiful from that of poor Athanase, who was quickly forgotten by
society, which always makes haste to forget its dead. The poor
Chevalier de Valois died in life; his suicide was a daily occurrence
for fourteen years. Three months after the du Bousquier marriage
society remarked, not without astonishment, that the linen of the
chevalier was frayed and rusty, that his hair was irregularly combed
and brushed. With a frowsy head the Chevalier de Valois could no
longer be said to exist! A few of his ivory teeth deserted, though the
keenest observers of human life were unable to discover to what body
they had hitherto belonged, whether to a foreign legion or whether
they were indigenous, vegetable or animal; whether age had pulled them
from the chevalier\'s mouth, or whether they were left forgotten in the
drawer of his dressing-table. The cravat was crooked, indifferent to
elegance. The negroes\' heads grew pale with dust and grease. The
wrinkles of the face were blackened and puckered; the skin became
parchment. The nails, neglected, were often seen, alas! with a black
velvet edging. The waistcoat was tracked and stained with droppings
which spread upon its surface like autumn leaves. The cotton in the
ears was seldom changed. Sadness reigned upon that brow, and slipped
its yellowing tints into the depths of each furrow. In short, the
ruins, hitherto so cleverly hidden, now showed through the cracks and
crevices of that fine edifice, and proved the power of the soul over
the body; for the fair and dainty man, the cavalier, the young blood,
died when hope deserted him. Until then the nose of the chevalier was
ever delicate and nice; never had a damp black blotch, nor an amber
drop fall from it; but now that nose, smeared with tobacco around the
nostrils, degraded by the driblets which took advantage of the natural
gutter placed between itself and the upper lip,--that nose, which no
longer cared to seem agreeable, revealed the infinite pains which the
chevalier had formerly taken with his person, and made observers
comprehend, by the extent of its degradation, the greatness and
persistence of the man\'s designs upon Mademoiselle Cormon.
A satyr:
Benassis was a man of ordinary height, broad-shouldered and deep-
chested. A capacious green overcoat, buttoned up to the chin,
prevented the officer from observing any characteristic details of his
personal appearance; but his dark and motionless figure served as a
strong relief to his face, which caught the bright light of the
blazing fire. The face was not unlike that of a satyr; there was the
same slightly protruding forehead, full, in this case, of prominences,
all more or less denoting character; the same turned-up nose, with a
sprightly cleavage at the tip; the same high cheek-bones. The lines of
the mouth were crooked; the lips, thick and red. The chin turned
sharply upwards. There was an alert, animated look in the brown eyes,
to which their pearly whites gave great brightness, and which
expressed passions now subdued. His iron-gray hair, the deep wrinkles
in his face, the bushy eyebrows that had grown white already, the
veins on his protuberant nose, the tanned face covered with red
blotches, everything about him, in short, indicated a man of fifty and
the hard work of his profession. The officer could come to no
conclusion as to the capacity of the head, which was covered by a
close cap; but hidden though it was, it seemed to him to be one of the
square-shaped kind that gave rise to the expression "square-headed."
Genestas was accustomed to read the indications that mark the features
of men destined to do great things, since he had been brought into
close relations with the energetic natures sought out by Napoleon; so
he suspected that there must be some mystery in this life of
obscurity...
From a Daughter of Eve:
Raoul Nathan would, perhaps, be more singular if left to his natural
self than he is with his various accompaniments. His worn and haggard
face gives him an appearance of having fought with angels or devils;
it bears some resemblance to that the German painters give to the dead
Christ; countless signs of a constant struggle between failing human
nature and the powers on high appear in it. But the lines in his
hollow cheeks, the projections of his crooked, furrowed skull, the
caverns around his eyes and behind his temples, show nothing weakly in
his constitution. His hard membranes, his visible bones are the signs
of remarkable solidity; and though his skin, discolored by excesses,
clings to those bones as if dried there by inward fires, it
nevertheless covers a most powerful structure. He is thin and tall.
His long hair, always in disorder, is worn so for effect. This ill-
combed, ill-made Byron has heron legs and stiffened knee-joints, an
exaggerated stoop, hands with knotty muscles, firm as a crab\'s claws,
and long, thin, wiry fingers. Raoul\'s eyes are Napoleonic, blue eyes,
which pierce to the soul; his nose is crooked and very shrewd; his
mouth charming, embellished with the whitest teeth that any woman
could desire. There is fire and movement in the head, and genius on
that brow. Raoul belongs to the small number of men who strike your
mind as you pass them, and who, in a salon, make a luminous spot to
which all eyes are attracted.....
The Ugly Count from "The Hated Son":
If matters were sad around the poor young woman, that face,
notwithstanding the tranquillity of sleep, seemed sadder still. The
light from the lamp, flickering in the draught, scarcely reached
beyond the foot of the bed and illumined the count\'s head
capriciously; so that the fitful movements of its flash upon those
features in repose produced the effect of a struggle with angry
thought. The countess was scarcely reassured by perceiving the cause
of that phenomenon. Each time that a gust of wind projected the light
upon the count\'s large face, casting shadows among its bony outlines,
she fancied that her husband was about to fix upon her his two
insupportably stern eyes.
Implacable as the war then going on between the Church and Calvinism,
the count\'s forehead was threatening even while he slept. Many
furrows, produced by the emotions of a warrior life, gave it a vague
resemblance to the vermiculated stone which we see in the buildings of
that period; his hair, like the whitish lichen of old oaks, gray
before its time, surrounded without grace a cruel brow, where
religious intolerance showed its passionate brutality. The shape of
the aquiline nose, which resembled the beak of a bird of prey, the
black and crinkled lids of the yellow eyes, the prominent bones of a
hollow face, the rigidity of the wrinkles, the disdain expressed in
the lower lip, were all expressive of ambition, despotism, and power,
the more to be feared because the narrowness of the skull betrayed an
almost total absence of intelligence, and a mere brute courage devoid
of generosity. The face was horribly disfigured by a large transversal
scar which had the appearance of a second mouth on the right cheek.
At the age of thirty-three the count, anxious to distinguish himself
in that unhappy religious war the signal for which was given on Saint-
Bartholomew\'s day, had been grievously wounded at the siege of
Rochelle. The misfortune of this wound increased his hatred against
the partisans of what the language of that day called "the Religion,"
but, by a not unnatural turn of mind, he included in that antipathy
all handsome men. Before the catastrophe, however, he was so
repulsively ugly that no lady had ever been willing to receive him as
a suitor. The only passion of his youth was for a celebrated woman
called La Belle Romaine. The distrust resulting from this new
misfortune made him suspicious to the point of not believing himself
capable of inspiring a true passion; and his character became so
savage that when he did have some successes in gallantry he owed them
to the terror inspired by his cruelty. The left hand of this terrible
Catholic, which lay on the outside of the bed, will complete this
sketch of his character. Stretched out as if to guard the countess, as
a miser guards his hoard, that enormous hand was covered with hair so
thick, it presented such a network of veins and projecting muscles,
that it gave the idea of a branch of birch clasped with a growth of
yellowing ivy.
Out-of-fashion clothes (from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life):
Nowadays old Canquoelle\'s costume would look strange, but between 1811
and 1820 it astonished no one. The old man wore shoes with cut-steel
buckles, silk stockings with stripes round the leg, alternately blue
and white, corded silk knee-breeches with oval buckles cut to match
those on his shoes. A white embroidered waistcoat, an old coat of
olive-brown with metal buttons, and a shirt with a flat-pleated frill
completed his costume. In the middle of the shirt-frill twinkled a
small gold locket, in which might be seen, under glass, a little
temple worked in hair, one of those pathetic trifles which give men
confidence, just as a scarecrow frightens sparrows. Most men, like
other animals, are frightened or reassured by trifles. Old
Canquoelle\'s breeches were kept in place by a buckle which, in the
fashion of the last century, tightened them across the stomach; from
the belt hung on each side a short steel chain, composed of several
finer chains, and ending in a bunch of seals. His white neckcloth was
fastened behind by a small gold buckle. Finally, on his snowy and
powdered hair, he still, in 1816, wore the municipal cocked hat which
Monsieur Try, the President of the Law Courts, also used to wear. But
Pere Canquoelle had recently substituted for this hat, so dear to old
men, the undignified top-hat, which no one dares to rebel against. The
good man thought he owed so much as this to the spirit of the age. A
small pigtail tied with a ribbon had traced a semicircle on the back
of his coat, the greasy mark being hidden by powder.
A soldier (from "Sons of the Soil") :
Blondet, who had not yet seen the bailiff of Les Aigues, was
conscious, as he now saw him, of a totally different impression from
that conveyed by Sibilet. Just as the steward inspired distrust and
repulsion, so Michaud commanded respect and confidence. The first
attraction of his presence was a happy face, of a fine oval, pure in
outline, in which the nose bore part,--a regularity which is lacking
in the majority of French faces. Though the features were correct in
drawing, they were not without expression, due, perhaps, to the
harmonious coloring of the warm brown and ochre tints, indicative of
physical health and strength. The clear brown eyes, which were bright
and piercing, kept no reserves in the expression of his thought; they
looked straight into the eyes of others. The broad white forehead was
thrown still further into relief by his abundant black hair. Honesty,
decision, and a saintly serenity were the animating points of this
noble face, where a few deep lines upon the brow were the result of
the man\'s military career. Doubt and suspicion could there be read the
moment they had entered his mind. His figure, like that of all men
selected for the elite of the cavalry service, though shapely and
elegant, was vigorously built. Michaud, who wore moustachios,
whiskers, and a chin beard, recalled that martial type of face which a
deluge of patriotic paintings and engravings came very near to making
ridiculous. This type had the defect of being common in the French
army; perhaps the continuance of the same emotions, the same camp
sufferings from which none were exempt, neither high nor low, and more
especially the same efforts of officers and men upon the battle-
fields, may have contributed to produce this uniformity of
countenance. Michaud, who was dressed in dark blue cloth, still wore
the black satin stock and high boots of a soldier, which increased the
slight stiffness and rigidity of his bearing. The shoulders sloped,
the chest expanded, as though the man were still under arms. The red
ribbon of the Legion of honor was in his buttonhole. In short, to give
a last touch in one word about the moral qualities beneath this purely
physical presentment, it may be said that while the steward, from the
time he first entered upon his functions, never failed to call his
master "Monsieur le comte," Michaud never addressed him otherwise than
as "General."
A young man (from "A Start in Life") :
Oscar gave a sigh as he remarked the jaunty manner in which his
companion\'s hat was stuck on one ear for the purpose of showing a
magnificent head of blond hair beautifully brushed and curled; while
he, by order of his step-father, had his black hair cut like a
clothes-brush across the forehead, and clipped, like a soldier\'s,
close to the head. The face of the vain lad was round and chubby and
bright with the hues of health, while that of his fellow-traveller was
long, and delicate, and pale. The forehead of the latter was broad,
and his chest filled out a waistcoat of cashmere pattern. As Oscar
admired the tight-fitting iron-gray trousers and the overcoat with its
frogs and olives clasping the waist, it seemed to him that this
romantic-looking stranger, gifted with such advantages, insulted him
by his superiority, just as an ugly woman feels injured by the mere
sight of a pretty one. The click of the stranger\'s boot-heels offended
his taste and echoed in his heart. He felt as hampered by his own
clothes (made no doubt at home out of those of his step-father) as
that envied young man seemed at ease in his.
A former dandy (from "A Start in Life"):
Unless by the sound of the voice, Oscar could never have recognized
the individual whose jokes had been so fatal to him. Georges, almost
bald, retained only three or four tufts of hair above his ears; but
these were elaborately frizzed out to conceal, as best they could, the
nakedness of the skull. A fleshiness ill-placed, in other words, a
pear-shaped stomach, altered the once elegant proportions of the ex-
young man. Now almost ignoble in appearance and bearing, Georges
exhibited the traces of disasters in love and a life of debauchery in
his blotched skin and bloated, vinous features. The eyes had lost the
brilliancy, the vivacity of youth which chaste or studious habits have
the virtue to retain. Dressed like a man who is careless of his
clothes, Georges wore a pair of shabby trousers, with straps intended
for varnished boots; but his were of leather, thick-soled, ill-
blacked, and of many months\' wear. A faded waistcoat, a cravat,
pretentiously tied, although the material was a worn-out foulard,
bespoke the secret distress to which a former dandy sometimes falls a
prey. Moreover, Georges appeared at this hour of the morning in an
evening coat, instead of a surtout; a sure diagnostic of actual
poverty. This coat, which had seen long service at balls, had now,
like its master, passed from the opulent ease of former times to daily
work. The seams of the black cloth showed whitening lines; the collar
was greasy; long usage had frayed the edges of the sleeves into
fringes.
A count from "Lily of the Valley":
I watched the count, trying to guess his character, but I became so
interested in certain leading traits that I got no further than a
superficial examination of his personality. Though he was only forty-
five years old, he seemed nearer sixty, so much had the great
shipwreck at the close of the eighteenth century aged him. The
crescent of hair which monastically fringed the back of his head,
otherwise completely bald, ended at the ears in little tufts of gray
mingled with black. His face bore a vague resemblance to that of a
white wolf with blood about its muzzle, for his nose was inflamed and
gave signs of a life poisoned at its springs and vitiated by diseases
of long standing. His flat forehead, too broad for the face beneath
it, which ended in a point, and transversely wrinkled in crooked
lines, gave signs of a life in the open air, but not of any mental
activity; it also showed the burden of constant misfortunes, but not
of any efforts made to surmount them. His cheekbones, which were brown
and prominent amid the general pallor of his skin, showed a physical
structure which was likely to ensure him a long life. His hard, light-
yellow eye fell upon mine like a ray of wintry sun, bright without
warmth, anxious without thought, distrustful without conscious cause.
His mouth was violent and domineering, his chin flat and long. Thin
and very tall, he had the bearing of a gentleman who relies upon the
conventional value of his caste, who knows himself above others by
right, and beneath them in fact. The carelessness of country life had
made him neglect his external appearance. His dress was that of a
country-man whom peasants and neighbors no longer considered except
for his territorial worth. His brown and wiry hands showed that he
wore no gloves unless he mounted a horse, or went to church, and his
shoes were thick and common.
(
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