This statement was so undeniably accurate that Falk felt compelled to deny it eagerly.
The opening of the hall door and the entrance of two men stopped all further civilities. The first of the new-comers was a man of thirty, broad-shouldered, with a square head, the front of which was supposed to represent the face; the skin looked like the half-rotten plank of a bridge in which worms have ploughed their labyrinths; the wide mouth, always slightly open, showed the four shining eye-teeth; whenever he smiled his face seemed to split into two parts; his mouth opened as far back as the fourth back tooth; not a single hair grew in the barren soil; the nose was so badly put on that one could see through it far into the head; on the upper part of the skull grew something which looked like cocoa-nut matting.
Struve, who possessed the faculty of ennobling his environment, introduced Candidate Borg as Dr. Borg. The latter, without a sign of either pleasure or annoyance, held out his arm to his companion, who pulled off the coat and hung it on the hinge of the front door, an act which drew from Mrs. Struve the remark that the old house was in such bad repair that there was not even a hall-stand.
The man who had helped Borg off with his overcoat was introduced as Mr. Levi. He was a tall, overgrown youth; the skull seemed but a backward development of the nasal bone, and the trunk which reached to the knees, looked as if it had been drawn through a wire plate, in the way in which wire is drawn; the shoulders slanted like eaves; there was no trace of hips, the shanks ran up into the thighs; the feet were worn out of shape like a pair of old shoes; the instep had given way. The legs curved outward and downward, like the legs of a working man who has carried heavy loads, or stood for the greater part of his life. He was a pure slave-type.
The candidate had remained at the door; he had taken off his gloves, put down his stick, blown his nose, and put back the handkerchief into his pocket without taking the least notice of Struve's repeated attempts to introduce him; he believed that he was still in the entrance hall; but now he took his hat, scraped the floor with his foot and made a step into the room.
"Good morning, Jenny! How are you?" he said, seizing Mrs. Struve's hand with as much eagerness as if it were a matter of life and death. He bowed, hardly perceptibly, to Falk, with the snarl of a dog who sees a strange dog in its yard.
Young Mr. Levi followed at the heels of the candidate, responding to his smiles, applauding his sarcasms, and generally kow-towing to his superiority.
Mrs. Struve opened a bottle of hock and filled the glasses. Struve raised his glass and welcomed his guests. The candidate opened his mouth, made a canal of his tongue, poured the contents of the glass on it, grinned as if it were physic and swallowed it.
"It's awfully sour and nasty," said Mrs. Struve; "would you prefer a glass of punch, Henrik?"
"Yes, it is very nasty," agreed the candidate, and Levi eagerly seconded him.