The old man belonged to the type of model dear to the masculine brush
of Schnetz. The countless wrinkles upon his brown face looked as if
they would be hard to the touch; the straight nose, the prominent
cheek-bones, streaked with red veins like a vine-leaf in autumn, the
angular features, all were characteristics of strength, even where
strength existed no longer. The hard hands, now that they toiled no
longer, had preserved their scanty white hair, his bearing was that of
an absolutely free man; it suggested the thought that, had he been an
Italian, he would have perhaps turned brigand, for the love of the
liberty so dear to him. The child was a regular mountaineer, with the
black eyes that can face the sun without flinching, a deeply tanned
complexion, and rough brown hair. His movements were like a bird's
--swift, decided, and unconstrained; his clothing was ragged; the
white, fair skin showed through the rents in his garments. There they
both stood in silence, side by side, both obeying the same impulse; in
both faces were clear tokens of an absolutely identical and idle life.
The old man had adopted the child's amusements, and the child had
fallen in with the old man's humor; there was a sort of tacit
agreement between two kinds of feebleness, between failing powers
well-nigh spent and powers just about to unfold themselves.
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