Pagina 574 di 788

At these words the Warden turned pale, bowed down, and, with half

his body bent forward, remained fixed in this position, hung upon

one foot, like a stone flying from on high but checked in its

course. He raised his eyelids and opened wide his mouth with its

threatening white teeth; his mustaches bristled; his sword

dropped from his hands, but he caught it near the floor with his

knees and held the pommel with his right hand, gripping it

convulsively: the long black blade of the sword stretched out

behind him and shook back and forth. And the Warden was like a

wounded lynx, about to spring from a tree into the very face of a

hunter: it puffs itself into a ball, growls, flashes fire from

its bloody eyeballs, twitches its whiskers and lashes its tail.