Strelsau Glasswork

Instead of the strong red hues of his youth, he was now left with but a dirty smear of colour in his thinning hair, which he wore over-long and straggly as if to compensate. His spare frame no longer filled the traditionally cut suits as amply as in earlier years, and his blue eyes had grown colder with the passage of time. While his height and upright bearing presented a distinguished image in the crowded room, those closest to him got no warmth from his carefully rationed smile, which revealed only uneven teeth badly stained by nicotine from his forty-a-day habit. He was not ageing with the elegance or the authority for which he would have wished.