When he got close under the gibbet, he looked up and examined it.

The spectre was tarred; here and there it shone.  The child distinguished the face.  It was coated over with pitch; and this mask, which appeared viscous and sticky, varied its aspect with the night shadows.  The child saw the mouth, which was a hole; the nose, which was a hole; the eyes, which were holes.  The body was wrapped, and apparently corded up, in coarse canvas, soaked in naphtha.  The canvas was mouldy and torn.  A knee protruded through it.  A rent disclosed the ribs—­partly corpse, partly skeleton.  The face was the colour of earth; slugs, wandering over it, had traced across it vague ribbons of silver.  The canvas, glued to the bones, showed in reliefs like the robe of a statue.  The skull, cracked and fractured, gaped like a rotten fruit.  The teeth were still human, for they retained a laugh.  The remains of a cry seemed to murmur in the open mouth.  There were a few hairs of beard on the cheek.  The inclined head had an air of attention.

Some repairs had recently been done; the face had been tarred afresh, as well as the ribs and the knee which protruded from the canvas.  The feet hung out below.

Just underneath, in the grass, were two shoes, which snow and rain had rendered shapeless.  These shoes had fallen from the dead man.

The barefooted child looked at the shoes.

The wind, which had become more and more restless, was now and then interrupted by those pauses which foretell the approach of a storm.  For the last few minutes it had altogether ceased to blow.  The corpse no longer stirred; the chain was as motionless as a plumb line.

Like all newcomers into life, and taking into account the peculiar influences of his fate, the child no doubt felt within him that awakening of ideas characteristic of early years, which endeavours to open the brain, and which resembles the pecking of the young bird in the egg.  But all that there was in his little consciousness just then was resolved into stupor.  Excess of sensation has the effect of too much oil, and ends by putting out thought.  A man would have put himself questions; the child put himself none—­he only looked.

The tar gave the face a wet appearance; drops of pitch, congealed in what had once been the eyes, produced the effect of tears.  However, thanks to the pitch, the ravage of death, if not annulled, was visibly slackened and reduced to the least possible decay.  That which was before the child was a thing of which care was taken:  the man was evidently precious.  They had not cared to keep him alive, but they cared to keep him dead.

The gibbet was old, worm-eaten, although strong, and had been in use many years.