MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

[3874] I waited for my image to come back, I watched it as it trembled towards
an ever increasing likeness. [3875] Now and then a drop, falling from my face,
shattered it again. [3876] I did not see a soul all day. [3877] But towards evening
I heard a prowling about the shelter. [3878] I did not move, [3879] and the footsteps
died away. [3880] But a little later, having left the shelter for some reason
or other, I saw a man a few paces off, standing motionless.

[3881] He had his
back to me. [3882] He wore a coat much too heavy for the time of the year and
was leaning on a stick so massive, and so much thicker at the bottom than
at the top, that it seemed more like a club. [3883] He turned and we looked at
each other for some time in silence.

[3884] That is to say I looked him full in
the face, as I always do, to make people think I am not afraid, whereas he
merely threw me a rapid glance from time to time, then lowered his eyes,
less from timidity apparently than in order quietly to think over what
he had just seen, before adding to it. [3885] There was a coldness in his stare,
and a thrust, the like of which I never saw.

[3886] His face was pale and noble,
I could have done with it. [3887] I was thinking he could not be much over fifty-
-five when he took off his hat, held it for a moment in his hand, then
put it back on his head. [3888] No resemblance to what is called raising one's
hat. [3889] But I thought it advisable to nod. [3890] The hat was quite extraordinary,
in shape and colour.

[3891] I shall not attempt to describe it, it was like none
I had ever seen. [3892] He had a huge shock of dirty snow-white hair. [3893] I had
time, before he squeezed it in back under his hat, to see the way it
swelled up on his skull. [3894] His face was dirty and hairy, yes, pale, noble,
dirty and hairy.

[3895] He made a curious movement, like a hen that puffs up
its feathers and slowly dwindles till it is smaller than before. [3896] I thought
he was going to depart without a word to me. [3897] But suddenly he asked me to
give him a piece of bread. [3898] He accompanied this humiliating request with
a fiery ll ^{[place = overwritten] o}ok. [3899] His accent was that of a foreigner or of one who had lost