Z. Marcas | Page 4

A common superstition has it that every human
countenance resembles some animal. The animal for Marcas was the
lion. His hair was like a mane, his nose was sort and flat; broad and
dented at the tip like a lion's; his brow, like a lion's, was strongly
marked with a deep median furrow, dividing two powerful bosses. His
high, hairy cheek-bones, all the more prominent because his cheeks
were so thin, his enormous mouth and hollow jaws, were accentuated
by lines of tawny shadows. This almost terrible countenance seemed
illuminated by two lamps--two eyes, black indeed, but infinitely sweet,
calm and deep, full of thought. If I may say so, those eyes had a
humiliated expression.
Marcas was afraid of looking directly at others, not for himself, but for
those on whom his fascinating gaze might rest; he had a power, and he
shunned using it; he would spare those he met, and he feared notice.
This was not from modesty, but from resignation founded on reason,
which had demonstrated the immediate inutility of his gifts, the
impossibility of entering and living in the sphere for which he was
fitted. Those eyes could at times flash lightnings. From those lips a
voice of thunder must surely proceed; it was a mouth like Mirabeau's.
"I have seen such a grand fellow in the street," said I to Juste on
coming in.
"It must be our neighbor," replied Juste, who described, in fact, the man

I had just met. "A man who lives like a wood-louse would be sure to
look like that," he added.
"What dejection and what dignity!"
"One is the consequence of the other."
"What ruined hopes! What schemes and failures!"
"Seven leagues of ruins! Obelisks--palaces--towers!--The ruins of
Palmyra in the desert!" said Juste, laughing.
So we called him the Ruins of Palmyra.
As we went out to dine at the wretched eating-house in the Rue de la
Harpe to which we subscribed, we asked the name of Number 37, and
then heard the weird name Z. Marcas. Like boys, as we were, we
repeated it more than a hundred times with all sorts of comments,
absurd or melancholy, and the name lent itself to a jest. Juste would fire
off the Z like a rocket rising, _z-z-z-z-zed_; and after pronouncing the
first syllable of the name with great importance, depicted a fall by the
dull brevity of the second.
"Now, how and where does the man live?"
From this query, to the innocent espionage of curiosity there was no
pause but that required for carrying out our plan. Instead of loitering
about the streets, we both came in, each armed with a novel. We read
with our ears open. And in the perfect silence of our attic rooms, we
heard the even, dull sound of a sleeping man breathing.
"He is asleep," said I to Juste, noticing this fact.
"At seven o'clock!" replied the Doctor.
This was the name by which I called Juste, and he called me the Keeper
of the Seals.
"A man must be wretched indeed to sleep as much as our neighbor!"

cried I, jumping on to the chest of drawers with a knife in my hand, to
which a corkscrew was attached.
I made a round hole at the top of the partition, about as big as a
five-sou piece. I had forgotten that there would be no light in the room,
and on putting my eye to the hole, I saw only darkness. At about one in
the morning, when we had finished our books and were about to
undress, we heard a noise in our neighbor's room. He got up, struck a
match, and lighted his dip. I got on to the drawers again, and I then saw
Marcas seated at his table and copying law-papers.
His room was about half the size of ours; the bed stood in a recess by
the door, for the passage ended there, and its breadth was added to his
garret; but the ground on which the house was built was evidently
irregular, for the party-wall formed an obtuse angle, and the room was
not square. There was no fireplace, only a small earthenware stove,
white blotched with green, of which the pipe went up through the roof.
The window, in the skew side of the room, had shabby red curtains.
The furniture consisted of an armchair, a table, a chair, and a wretched
bed-table. A cupboard in the wall held his clothes. The wall-paper was
horrible; evidently only a servant had ever been lodged there before
Marcas.
"What is to be seen?" asked the Doctor as I got down.
"Look for yourself," said I.
At nine next morning, Marcas was in bed. He had breakfasted off a
saveloy; we saw on a plate, with some crumbs