Chapter 22 - Page 2

trial; he was to find out
whether he could recognize himself, as he had not seen his
own face for fourteen years. He had preserved a tolerably
good remembrance of what the youth had been, and was now to
find out what the man had become. His comrades believed that
his vow was fulfilled. As he had twenty times touched at
Leghorn, he remembered a barber in St. Ferdinand Street; he
went there to have his beard and hair cut. The barber gazed
in amazement at this man with the long, thick and black hair
and beard, which gave his head the appearance of one of
Titian's portraits. At this period it was not the fashion to
wear so large a beard and hair so long; now a barber would
only be surprised if a man gifted with such advantages
should consent voluntarily to deprive himself of them. The
Leghorn barber said nothing and went to work.

When the operation was concluded, and Edmond felt that his
chin was completely smooth, and his hair reduced to its
usual length, he asked for a hand-glass. He was now, as we
have said, three-and-thirty years of age, and his fourteen
years' imprisonment had produced a great transformation in
his appearance. Dantes had entered the Chateau d'If with the
round, open, smiling face of a young and happy man, with
whom the early paths of life have been smooth. and who
anticipates a future corresponding with his past. This was
now all changed. The oval face was lengthened, his smiling
mouth had assumed the firm and marked lines which betoken
resolution; his eyebrows were arched beneath a brow furrowed
with thought; his eyes were full of melancholy, and from
their depths occasionally sparkled gloomy fires of
misanthropy and hatred; his complexion, so long kept from
the sun, had now that pale color which produces, when the
features are encircled with black hair, the aristocratic
beauty of the man of the north; the profound learning he had
acquired had besides diffused over his features a refined
intellectual expression; and he had also acquired, being
naturally of a goodly stature, that vigor which a frame
possesses which has so long concentrated all its force
within itself.

To the elegance of a nervous and slight form had succeeded
the solidity of a rounded and muscular figure. As to his
voice, prayers, sobs, and imprecations had changed it so
that at times it was of a singularly penetrating sweetness,
and at others rough and almost hoarse. Moreover, from being
so long in twilight or darkness, his eyes had acquired the
faculty of distinguishing objects in the night, common to
the hyena and the wolf. Edmond smiled when he beheld
himself: it was impossible that his best friend -- if,
indeed, he had any friend left -- could recognize him; he
could