Class 11 English 2024 Edition www.tntextbooks.in · Section 139

and the window panes with a hooked stick, apparently frantic for light and air. Then he crawled back into the machine again and drew a little black cloth over himself. This time he was very quiet in there. I knew that he was praying and I kept still. When the photographer came out at last, he looked very grave and shook his head. “The face is quite wrong,” he said. “I know,” I answered quietly; “I have always known it.” He sighed. “I think,” he said, “the face would be better three-quarters full.” “I’m sure it would,” I said enthusiastically, for I was glad to find that the man had such a human side to him. “So would yours. In fact,” I continued, “how many faces one sees that are apparently hard, narrow, limited, but the minute you get them three-quarters full they get wide, large, almost boundless in–” But the photographer had ceased to listen. He came over and took my head in his hands and twisted it sideways. I thought he meant to kiss me, and I closed my eyes. But I was wrong. He twisted my face as far as it would go and then stood looking at it. Do you know? There are two types of photography –wet photography and dry photography. He sighed again. “I don’t like the head,” he said. Then he went back to the machine and took another look. “Open the mouth a little,” he said. I started to do so. “Close it,” he added quickly. Then he looked again. “The ears are bad,” he said; “droop them a little more. Thank you. Now the eyes. Roll them in under the lids. Put the hands on the knees, please, and turn the face just a little upward. Yes, that’s better. Now just expand the lungs! So! And hump the neck–that’s it–and just contract the waist–ha!–and twist the hip up toward the elbow–now! I still don’t quite like the face, it’s just a trifle too full, but–” I swung myself round on the stool. “Stop,” I said with emotion but, I think, with dignity. “This face is my face. It is not yours, it is mine. I’ve lived with it for forty -C-SR-With the - - :