At last they stood before me at the very place where the animal had appeared. There were three of them, and they were bending down as if they were following a trail. At the spot where the beast had turned, one of them uttered an exclamation and made a gesture as if they should go back. But they perceived me and I advanced towards them.
“Gentlemen,” said I smiling my best, “could you kindly show me the way to Fonval? I have lost myself.”
The three men looked at me without replying, in an inquisitive and shy way.
They were a very remarkable trio.
The first possessed on the top of a massive and squat body a round and calamitously flat face, the thin pointed nose on which, as if it had been shoved into it, made the disc into a sundial.
The second had a military air and was twisting his mustache, which was on the German imperial model, and his chin stuck out like the toe of a boot.
A tall old man with gold spectacles, gray curly hair and an unkempt beard, made up the trio. He was eating cherries in a noisy way, as a bumpkin eats tripe.
They were obvious Germans, doubtless the assistants from the Anatomisches Institut.
The tall old man spat out in my direction a salvo of cherry-stones, and in the direction of his comrades, one of those Teuton phrases, in which a hail of shrapnel-like words mingles with other nameless noises.
They exchanged in their own way some remarks which resembled so many broadsides, without paying the least attention to me, and then after cleverly imitating with their mouths the sound of a battle going on beside a waterfall—having held a council, in fact—they turned on their heels and left me astounded at their rudeness.