She was drawn to the poor. There was a constant stream of poor men and women, beggars, coming to her door to ask for food or money. She had never been known to refuse anybody at the door. This annoyed Hubert. He said too many came begging, and that they had got to know her, and that they took advantage. He was often known to give money himself, but he protested that with her it was too much of a good thing. She continued to give to whoever came to the door. Two or three came regularly, some came once in a while, and there were some who only came once. There were some who offered needles, pins, shoelaces, or pencils for sale. One man brought his wife and a large family of young children and stood in the street singing heartily before he came to the door. His wife carried a baby in her arms. She took up her stand, glanced at her husband, and murmured timidly along with him as he sang, while the children gazed hopefully about at the blank windows up and down the terrace.

There was one man who had been coming to the door longer than any of the others. This was the man with the crooked hand. He always came at a certain time on Thursday afternoon. Mrs. Derdon took an interest in this poor man because she suspected that like herself he came from the country. He wore a countryman’s soft cloth cap and a navy blue serge suit, with the collar of the coat turned up around a scarf in the winter, and in the summer around a shirt that was not clean and that had neither collar nor tie. His left hand hung down at his side. It was sound. His right hand he carried high against his chest, like a treasure, with the shoulder hunched protectively behind it. This hand was deformed, or rather it had been maimed, crushed into a hard veiny lump, the skin of it cured a tender red, a boiled color, very sore-looking. Only the stumps of the fingers were left, and the thumb had folded over into the palm. His eyes, blue, seemed weary enough to die, but still the poor natural mouth, obedient to its end, a mouth so lonely it appeared to have no tongue, opened itself to her in a thin, bashful smile of recognition and supplication. Never mind, never mind, never mind, no blame to you nor to me nor to anybody, the mouth said, only fill me.

This man’s humanity, the sin he got with it and its daily punishment, lay so plain on his cheeks that he looked hammered and chilly, like a corpse. From the very beginning he looked to be on his last legs. Once Hubert, glimpsing him from behind the sitting-room curtains, said, “God help us, if he doesn’t look like every poor unfortunate man you ever saw.”