"Almost a wraith!—so thin, so white!"
"An ascetic!"
"Consumed by the fire of his own patriotism."
"His eloquence!"
"His selflessness!"
"You have heard him speak, citizen?"
A girl, still in her 'teens, her elbows resting on the table, her hands supporting her rounded chin, asks the question with bated breath. Her large grey eyes, hollow and glowing, are fixed upon her vis-à-vis, a tall, ungainly creature, who sprawls over the table, vainly trying to dispose of his long limbs in a manner comfortable to himself.
His hair is lank and matted with grease, his face covered in coal-dust; a sennight's growth of beard, stubby and dusty, accentuates the squareness of his jaw even whilst it fails to conceal altogether the cruel, sarcastic curves of his mouth. But for the moment, in the rapt eyes of the young enthusiast, he is a prophet, a seer, a human marvel: he has heard Robespierre speak.
"Was it in the Club, citizen Rateau?" another woman asks—a young matron with a poor little starveling at her breast.
The man gives a loud guffaw, displays in the feeble, flickering light of the nearest torch a row of hideous uneven teeth, scored with gaps and stained with tobacco juice.