In Hanscha's sober hours he was her despair, and she could be horrible
in her anger, once the court reprimanding her and threatening to take
Jason from her because of welts found on his back.
It was in her cups that she was proud of him, and so it behooved Jason
to drink her down to her pallet, which he could, easily.
He was handsome. His red hair had darkened to the same bronze of the
samovar and he was straight as the drop of an apple from the branch. He
was reckless. Could turn a pretty penny easily, even dangerously, and
spend it with a flip for a pushcart bauble.
Once he brought home a plaster-of-Paris Venus--the Melos one with the
beautiful arch to her torso of a bow that instant after the arrow has
flown. Hanscha cuffed him for the expenditure, but secretly her old
heart, which since childhood had subjected her to strange, rather
epileptical, sinking spells, and had induced the drinking, warmed her
with pride in his choice.
Hanscha, with her veiny nose and the dreadful single hair growing out of
a mole on her chin, was not without her erudition.
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