Page:The argonauts Translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin.djvu/21

 round table covered with maps, pamphlets, thick volumes; around the table, heavy, deep and low armchairs. The room was spacious with a lofty ceiling, from which hung over the round table a splendid lamp, burning brightly.

Darvid's remote prototype, the Argonaut Jason, must have had quite a different exterior when he sailed on toward Colchis to find the golden fleece. Time, which changes the methods of contest, changes the forms of its knights correspondingly. Jason trusted in the strength of his arm and his sword-blade. Darvid trusted in his brain and his nerves only. Hence, in him, brain and nerves were developed to the prejudice of muscles, creating a special power, which one had to know in order to recognize it in that slender and not lofty figure, in that face with shrunken cheeks, covered with skin which was dry, pale, and as mobile as if quivering from every breeze which carried his bark toward the shores which he longed for. On his cheeks shone narrow strips of whiskers, almost bronze-hued; the silky ends of these fell on his stiff, low collar; ruddy mustaches, short and firm, darkened his pale, thin lips, which had a smile in the changeableness of which was great expression; this smile ncouraged, discouraged, attracted, repelled, believed, doubted, courted or jeered—jeered frequently. But the main seat of power in Darvid seemed to be his eyes, which rested long and attentively on that which he examined. These eyes had pupils of steel color, cold, very deep, and with a fulness of penetrating light which was often sharp, under brows which were prominent, whose ruddy lines were drawn under a high forehead, increased further by incipient baldness—a forehead which was smooth and had the polish of ivory; between the brows were numerous wrinkles, like a cloud of anxiety and care. His was a cold, reasoning face, energetic, with the stamp of thought