Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/39

 Nemours. In spite of past behavior of an almost debauched lowness, Dionis had taken Goupil into his office, when further sojourn in Paris, where the clerk had dissipated the inheritance of his father, a well-to-do farmer who had destined him for a notary, was forbidden him by absolute poverty. Upon seeing Goupil, you would at once have understood that he had lost no time in enjoying life; for, to obtain enjoyment, he must have paid dearly. In spite of his small stature, at twenty-seven years old the clerk’s chest and shoulders were as developed as those of a man of forty. Slender, short legs, a large face the color of a sky before a storm and crowned by a bald forehead, still further brought out this strange conformation. His face also seemed to belong to a humpback whose hump must have been inside. One peculiarity of this sharp, pale face confirmed the existence of this invisible hunchback. Curved and twisted like that of so many hunchbacks, the nose bent from right to left instead of accurately dividing the face. The mouth, contracted at both corners like those of the Sardinians, was always on the lookout for irony. Thin reddish hair fell in straight locks, and in places disclosed the skull. The hands, coarse and badly set at the end of over-long arms, were crooked and rarely clean. Goupil was wearing shoes only fit to throw into a rubbish heap, and thread stockings of a reddish black; his trousers and black coat, worn threadbare and almost thick with dirt; his pitiful waistcoats, several buttons of which were short of