The reddish moustachios, strong jaw and
shaved head completed his would-be martial appearance; but his eyes,
large, dark-circled and near-sighted, were the eyes of a student taking
refuge behind great thick glasses which gave him the aspect of a man of
peace.
Desnoyers knew that he was an assistant professor of the University,
that he had published a few volumes, fat and heavy as bricks, and that
he was a member of an academic society collaborating in documentary
research directed by a famous historian. In his lapel he was wearing the
badge of a foreign order.
Julio's respect for the learned member of the family was not unmixed
with contempt. He and his sister Chichi had from childhood felt an
instinctive hostility toward the cousins from Berlin. It annoyed him,
too, to have his family everlastingly holding up as a model this
pedant who only knew life as it is in books, and passed his existence
investigating what men had done in other epochs, in order to draw
conclusions in harmony with Germany's views. While young Desnoyers
had great facility for admiration, and reverenced all those whose
"arguments" Argensola had doled out to him, he drew the line at
accepting the intellectual grandeur of this illustrious relative.
During his stay in Berlin, a German word of vulgar invention had enabled
him to classify this prig.
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