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If this was the man whose prayers and groans and sobs had come to me through the locked door, if he had wrestled with his conscience or even had been the accusing conscience of another, his face was a mask that showed no trace of the agony of thoughts that might contort the spirit beneath it. "I was attending to a little work of my own," I answered, after greeting.
"She can't move her wings!" Terror paralyzed him; horror bound him. He stood still-numb, dumb, helpless. Down she came like an arrow. Her wings kept straight above her head, moveless, still. He could see her breast and shoulders heave and twist, and contort in a fury of effort. Underneath her were the trees. He had a sudden, lightning-swift vision of a falling aviator that he had once seen.
"He better ask his beloved Amrick herself. How could she know?" But here she began to contort her face horribly, and to spit out, whereupon the Duke called out to his retinue "Come here, and hang me this hag upon the oak-tree; she is at her devil's sorceries again! And woe! woe! already I feel strange pains all through my body!"
He would cut, bend, and twist you into those impossible positions which he thinks it proper that you should assume. He would contort your muscles and dislocate your bones like any osteopath. He would burn you with red-hot coals to stop your bleeding, and thrust wires into you to assist your circulation. He would diet you with salt, vinegar, alum, and sometimes, vitriol.
"And how sure they all are those that do the work as well as those that make them do it that it ought to be; that while their wives at home, who are with child, are labouring beyond their strength, and their children with the patchwork caps, doomed soon to the cold grave, smile with suffering and contort their little legs, they must be building this stupid and useless palace for some stupid and useless person one of those who spoil and rob them," Nekhludoff thought, while looking at the house.
Meantime, Poor Peter Peebles, whose shallow brain was altogether unable to bear the importance of the moment, kept as close to his young counsel as shadow to substance, affected now to speak loud, now to whisper in his ear, now to deck his ghastly countenance with wreathed smiles, now to cloud it with a shade of deep and solemn importance, and anon to contort it with the sneer of scorn and derision.
Peter Kirkstone, is it your desire that your sister, Miriam, give herself to me, Prince Kao, tonight?" Again the thick lips moved. This time Keith saw the effort. He shuddered. He knew these questions and answers had been prepared. A doomed man was speaking. And the voice came, choking, "Yes." The terrible face of Peter Kirkstone seemed to contort. He looked at Kao.
'Have done, now! exclaimed the hag, in a cracked tone, at the same time vainly endeavoring to contort her toothless jaws into an engaging simper, while the Doctor nearly burst with laughter 'have done now, or I'll slap ye for your impudence. But, faith, ye are such a pleasant gentleman, that I don't mind bestowing a kiss or two upon ye!
The Czar was a very tall man, exceedingly well made; rather thin, his face somewhat round, a high forehead, good eyebrows, a rather short nose, but not too short, and large at the end, rather thick lips, complexion reddish brown, good black eyes, large, bright, piercing, and well open; his look majestic and gracious when he liked, but when otherwise, severe and stern, with a twitching of the face, not often occurring, but which appeared to contort his eyes and all his physiognomy, and was frightful to see; it lasted a moment, gave him a wild and terrible air, and passed away.
The very thought of Clay seemed to inspire his genius for vituperation; his eye would gleam, his meagre and attenuated form would writhe and contort as if under the enchantment of a demon; his long, bony fingers would be extended, as if pointing at an imaginary Clay, air-drawn as the dagger of Macbeth, as he would writhe the muscles of his beardless, sallow, and wrinkled face, pouring out the gall of his soul upon his hated enemy.
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