a small fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and
vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head.
Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been
merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body
long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the
fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump
of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their
errand.