After
they had asked me an infinity of questions, and felt my hands,
face, and clothes, they retired to their own homes.
That same night the two men of whom I have already particularly
spoken came to see me. They sat down by the brasero in the middle
of the apartment, and began to smoke small paper cigars. We
continued for a considerable time in silence surveying each other.
Of the two Gitanos one was an elderly man, tall and bony, with
lean, skinny, and whimsical features, though perfectly those of a
Gypsy; he spoke little, and his expressions were generally singular
and grotesque. His companion, who was the man whom I had first
noticed in the street, differed from him in many respects; he could
be scarcely thirty, and his figure, which was about the middle
height, was of Herculean proportions; shaggy black hair, like that
of a wild beast, covered the greatest part of his immense head; his
face was frightfully seamed with the small-pox, and his eyes, which
glared like those of ferrets, peered from beneath bushy eyebrows;
he wore immense moustaches, and his wide mouth was garnished with
teeth exceedingly large and white. There was one peculiarity about
him which must not be forgotten: his right arm was withered, and
hung down from his shoulder a thin sapless stick, which contrasted
strangely with the huge brawn of the left.
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