He had a long nose and almost colorless lips and the skin on his cheeks was white. It was drawn tight over his bones, leaving few wrinkles.
An expression of peace rested over him—peace and detachment. Of the noise and babble he heard nothing. His eyes were closed to the crowded frantic street.
He sat, his head back, his face bathed in the sun, smileless and dreaming.
“A beggar,” thought Moisse, “asleep, oblivious. Dead. All day he sits in the sun like a saint, immobile. Like one of the old Alexandrian ascetics, like a delicately carved image. He is awake in himself but dead to others. The waves cannot touch him. His thoughts, oh to know his thoughts and his dreams?”
Suddenly the eyes of the young dramatist widened. He was looking at the beggar’s long hair that hung to his neck.
“It’s moving,” he whispered half aloud. He came closer and stood over the old man and gazed intently at the top of his head.
The hair was swaying faintly, each separate fiber moving alone....
It shifted, rose imperceptibly and fell. It quivered and glided....
“Lice,” murmured Moisse.
He watched.