The beholders viewed an amazed figure which
seemed petrified even to an expression on his face. There are countenances
which display the ordinary emotions of humanity in a fashion unusual and
peculiar to themselves. Thus, while the customary and conventional signs of
sorrow are a down-drawing slant to the corners of mouth and eye, yet it
sometimes happens that the lines more usually associated with gratification
are donned in grief. Of this freakish character was the face of Joe Noy.
His muscles seemed to follow the bones underneath them; and now beholding
him, the surprised spectators saw a man of gigantic proportions
gigantically moved. Yet, while sorrow was discernible in his voice, the
corners of his mouth were dragged up till his lips resembled a half-moon on
its back, and the lids and corners of his eyes were full of laughter
wrinkles, while the eyes themselves were starting and agonized. The man's
catalogue had fallen to the ground; his hands were clinched; now, as others
watched him, he came step by step nearer to the picture.
To estimate the force of the thing upon Noy's hungry heart, to present the
chaos of emotions which now gripped him at the goal of his pilgrimage, is
impossible. Here, restored to him by art, was his dead sweetheart, the sum
and total of all the beauty he had worshiped and which for nearly a year of
absence had been his guiding star. He knew that she was in her grave, yet
she stood before him sweet and fresh, with the moisture of life in her eyes
and on her lips.
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