ervale, Glyndon sauntered musingly into the
public gardens, and paused under the very tree under which he had
first heard the voice that had exercised upon his mind so singular an
influence. The gardens were deserted. He threw himself on one of the
seats placed beneath the shade; and again, in the midst of his reverie,
the same cold shudder came over him which Zanoni had so distinctly
defined, and to which he had ascribed so extraordinary a cause.

He roused himself with a sudden effort, and started to see, seated next
him, a figure hideous enough to have personated one of the malignant
beings of whom Zanoni had spoken. It was a small man, dressed in a
fashion strikingly at variance with the elaborate costume of the day:
an affectation of homeliness and poverty approaching to squalor, in
the loose trousers, coarse as a ship's sail; in the rough jacket, which
appeared rent wilfully into holes; and the black, ragged, tangled locks
that streamed from their confinement under a woollen cap, accorded but
ill with other details which spoke of comparative wealth. The shirt,
open at the throat, was fastened by a brooch of gaudy stones; and two
pendent massive gold chains announced the foppery of two watches.

The man's figure, if not absolutely deformed, was yet marvellously
ill-favoured; his shoulders high and square; his chest flattened, as if
crushed in; his gloveless hands were knotted at the joints, and, large,
bony, and muscular, dangled from lean, emaciated wrists, as if not
belonging to them. His features had the painful distortion sometimes
seen in the countenance of a cripple,--large, exaggerated, with the nose
nearly touching the chin; the eyes small, but glowing with a cunning
fire as they dwelt on Glyndon; and the mouth was twisted into a grin
that displayed rows of jagged, black, broken teeth. Yet over this
frightful face there still played a kind of disagreeable intelligence,
an expression at once astute and bold; and as Glyndon, recovering from
the first impression, looked again at his neighbour, he blushed at his
own dismay, and recognised a French artist, with whom he had formed an
acquaintance, and who was possessed of no inconsiderable talents in his
calling.

Indeed, it was to be remarked that this creature, whose externals were
so deserted by the Graces, particularly delighted in designs aspiring to
majesty and grandeur. Though his colouring was hard and shallow, as
was that generally of the French school