Happily, Godefroid's early arrival saved him the annoyance of being kept waiting.He was, he supposed, the first comer.From a very plain and simple antechamber he passed into a large study, where he saw an old man in a dressing-gown smoking a long pipe.The dressing-gown, of black bombazine, shiny with use, dated from the period of the Polish emigration.
"What can I do for you?" said the Jewish doctor, "for I see you are not ill." And he fixed on his visitor a look which had the inquisitive, piercing expression of the eyes of a Polish Jew, eyes which seem to have ears of their own.
Halpersohn was, to Godefroid's great astonishment, a man of fifty-six years of age, with small bow-legs, and a broad, powerful chest and shoulders.There was something oriental about the man, and his face in its youth must have been very handsome.The nose was Hebraic, long and curved like a Damascus blade.The forehead, truly Polish, broad and noble, but creased like a bit of crumpled paper, resembled that given by the old Italian masters to Saint Joseph.The eyes, of a sea-green, and circled, like those of parrots, with a gray and wrinkled membrane, expressed slyness and avarice in an eminent degree.The mouth, gashed into the face like a wound, added to the already sinister expression of the countenance all the sarcasm of distrust.
That pale, thin face, for Halpersohn's whole person was remarkably thin, surmounted by ill-kept gray hair, ended in a long and very thick, black beard, slightly touched with white, which hid fully half the face, so that nothing was really seen of it but the forehead, nose, eyes, cheek-bones, and mouth.