semi-mechant

Updated: May 25, 2025

Three persons: reading from left to right as I face them a soggy, sleepy, slumpy lump in a gendarme's cape and cap, quite old, captain of gendarmes, not at all interested, wrinkled coarse face, only semi-mechant, large hard clumsy hands, floppingly disposed on table; wily tidy man in civilian clothes, pen in hand, obviously lawyer, avocat type, little bald on top, sneaky civility, smells of bad perfume or, at any rate, sweetish soap; tiny red-headed person, also civilian, creased worrying excited face, amusing little body and hands, brief and jumpy, must be a Dickens character, ought to spend his time sailing kites of his own construction over other people's houses in gusty weather.

E. E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings - The Enormous Room