The Describer's Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms & Literary Quotations (42 page)

One was rather short and very stoutly built, with a big bullet-shaped head, a bristly grey moustache, and small pale-blue eyes, a trifle bloodshot. The other was a slender young fellow, of middle height, dark in complexion, and bearing himself with grace and distinction.

Sometimes, when a fierce wind blows out of the north, the faces of the scurrying citizens, drawn tight by the bluster of it, all seem to acquire a Lappish look, their eyes rather slanted, their cheekbones heightened, their skulls apparently narrowed, until they too, tending as they often do anyway toward an ideal androgyny, seem like a species devised especially for the setting by fablers or geneticists.

Moore wore a splendid black silk robe with a gold lamé collar and belt. He sports a full mustache above an imperial, and his hair, sleeked down under pomade when he opens operations, invariably rises during the contest, as it gets water sloshed on it between rounds and the lacquer washes off, until it is standing up like the tope of a shaving brush.

On the wall were three heads, carved in relief and adorned with touches of red paint. One had a pronounced “imperial,” —a pointed tuft of beard.

Ezra Stowbody was a troglodyte. He had come to Gopher Prairie in 1865. He was a distinguished bird of prey—swooping thin nose, turtle mouth, thick brows, port-wine cheeks, floss of white hair, contemptuous eyes.

He was taller than Gustav, a thin man with rough-cut dark-grey hair and beard and an aquiline nose. He turned by chance and faced us and I had a full view of his gaunt face. What surprised me was its fierceness. A severity that was almost savagery. I had never seen a face that expressed such violent determination never to compromise, never to deviate. Never to smile. And what eyes! They were slightly exophthalmic, of the most startling cold blue. Beyond any doubt, insane eyes.