His face was good, his hair dark, forehead without a wrinkle, high and
massive, eyes bright and sparkling, nose neither fine nor dumpy--a fair
enough proboscis as noses go. There was an expression about the upper lip
and mouth that I did not like--a constant nervous sort of lifting of the
lip as it were; and as the mustache appeared to have been recently shaven
off, there was a white blueness on the upper lip, that contrasted
unpleasantly with the dark tinge which he had gallantly wrought for on the
glowing sands of Egypt, and the bronzing of his general features from
fierce suns and parching winds. His bare neck and hands were delicately
fair, the former firm and muscular, the latter slender and tapering, like
a woman's. He was reading a gazette, or some printed paper, when we
entered; and although there was a tolerable clatter of muskets, sabres,
and spurs, he never once lifted his eye in the direction where we stood.
Opposite this personage, on a low chair, with his legs crossed, and eyes
fixed on the ashes that were dropping from the stove, with his brown cloak
hanging from his shoulders, sat a short stout personage, a man about
thirty years of age, with fair flaxen hair, a florid complexion, a very
fair skin, and massive German features. The expression of his face, so
far as such a countenance could be said to have any characteristic
expression, was that of fixed sorrow.

But before I could make any other observation, the aide--de--camp
approached with a good spice of fear and trembling, as I could see.

"Colonel-----to wait on your Highness."

"Ah!"--said the officer to whom he spoke,--"ah, colonel, what do you here?
Has the Emperor advanced again?"