On the hill there was a poor tramp wandering about with his stick, in among the carriages. A mass of rags covered his shoulders, and a squashed beaver-hat, bent down into the shape of a bowl, concealed his face; but, when he took it off, he exposed, instead of eyelids, two yawning bloodstained holes. The flesh was tattered into scarlet strips; and fluid was trickling out, congealing into green crusts that reached down to his nose, with black nostrils that kept sniffing convulsively. Whenever he spoke, he threw back his head with an idiot laugh;—then his blue eyes, rolling continuously, would graze the edges of the open sores, near both temples.
He used to sing a little song as he followed the carriages:
Souvent la chaleur d’un beau jour
[Maids in the warmth of a summer day,]
Fait rêver fillette à l’amour.
[Dream of love, and of love always . . . ]—Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
