Bräsig had expressed himself too strongly, but Gottlieb was no beauty. Nature had dealt niggardly with him, and the little that he had he did not use to advantage. Take his hair, for instance. He had a thick head of hair, and if it had been properly kept under by the shears, it would have been good, respectable light hair, and he might have gone about, without attracting any attention; but he had, in his clerical heart, set up for his model, St. John the beloved, and he parted his hair in the middle, and combed it down on each side, though its natural tendency was to stand upright. Eh, well, I have nothing to say against it if a little rogue of ten or twelve years runs around with curls about his head, and the mothers of the little rogues have still less to say against it, and they turn them about, and stroke the hair out of their eyes, and comb it smooth, too, when a visitor is coming,--silly people sometimes go so far as to put it up in curl-papers, and use hot irons; I should have nothing to say, if it were the fashion for old people to curl their hair in long curls, for the old pictures look very fine so; but he who has no calves ought not to wear tight trowsers, and if a man's hair does not curl, he does better to keep it short. Our old Gottlieb's incongruous wig hung down, tanned by the sun, as if he had tied in a lot of rusty lath-nails, and because he had to oil it very liberally to keep it in its place, it ruined his coat-collar,--farther, it did not reach. Under this rich gift of nature, looked out an insignificant, pale face, which usually wore a melancholy expression, so that Bräsig was always asking him what shoemaker he employed, and whether his corns troubled him. The rest of his figure harmonized with this expression, he was long, and thin and angular; but the part devoted to the enjoyment of the good things of this world seemed quite wanting, and the place which this necessary and useful organ generally occupies was a great cavity, like Frau Nüssler's baking-tray, seen from the inside. He was really a natural curiosity for Bräsig, who ate like a barn-thresher, and couldn't help it. One would almost have believed that the Pietist was nourished in some other way than by eating and drinking. I have known people, and know some people still, whom I never could rival in this respect. It is true these candidates are often very thin, as one may see by the best of the Hanover candidates, who are so plenty among us; but when one gets a fat parish, he often begins to fill out, and so Bräsig did not give up the hope that Gottlieb might come to something, in time, though he puzzled his brains over him a great deal. This was the way Gottlieb Baldrian looked; but the picture would not be complete, if I did not say that over the whole was spread a little, little smirk of Pharisaism; it was a very little, but that Pharisee stuff is like a calf's stomach; with a little, little bit one can turn a whole pan of milk sour.