med."

"Was he drunk?"

"Yes, he was, and the others as well; and very drunk too, both the
doctor and the lawyer; and the worst of it was, they were neither of
them his friends or partisans. It was a trick they had played on him,
for that was what people were in the habit of doing. They had
undertaken to make him drunk; but they had become still more drunk
themselves."

"How horrible, mother!" She wanted to stop; but the mother went on.

"Yes. I had read all kinds of things about Karl Mander--but it was a
different thing to see him."

"Were you not afraid?"

"Yes. It was disgusting. But when they came near enough for me to
distinguish their faces, and all the people in the crowd who could see
them laughed aloud, I shook off my fear; and when they came quite
close, Karl Mander appeared to me such a marvel that I absolutely
delighted in him. I admit it."

"How a marvel?"

"He was the embodiment of beaming joy! Picture a whole brigade of
cavalry in the maddest gallop, you would not get such a sense of
exuberant delight! The powerful figure with the mighty head held these
two little men, one under each arm, as though he were dragging along
two poachers. And as he did so he laughed and shouted like a boisterous
child. He looked as kindly and gladsome as the longest day in the year
up at the North Pole. As for the others who had set themselves to make
him tipsy--for, as I have told you, it was the fashionable amusement at
that time to make Karl Mander drunk--he brought them alongside in
triumph. He was tremendously proud of it. He was tall and
broad-shouldered, in his light checked woollen suit, which was very
thin and fine; for he could not endure heat, he was foremost among the
worshippers of cold water, and bathed in it, even when he had to break
the ice. He held his hat, which was a soft one and could be folded up,
in his left hand. That was how he was always seen; he never wore his
hat at home, and out of doors he carried it in his hand.

"A great bushy head of hair, extraordinarily thick and brown; which at
this moment was falling over the lofty brow--(yes, your brow is like
his)--and then the beard! I have never seen so beautiful a beard. It
was of a light colour and very thick, but the chief peculiarity of it
was its delicate curliness. It was positively beautiful in itself--as a
beard seldom is.

"And then those deep shining eyes--yours are _something_ like
them--and the clearly cut curve of the nose! H