Sevastopol by Leo Tolstoy

Towards the end of August, between Douvánka70 and Bahtchisaráy, through the hot, thick dust of the rocky and hilly highway, an officer's trap was slowly toiling towards Sevastopol (that peculiar kind of trap you never meet anywhere else, something between a Jewish brítchka, a Russian cart, and a basket).

In the front of the trap, pulling at the reins, squatted an orderly in a nankeen coat and wearing a cap that had once belonged to an officer but was now quite limp: behind, on bundles and bales covered with a soldier's cloak, sat an infantry officer in a summer cloak. The officer, as far as one could judge while he was sitting, was not tall, but was very broad and massive, not so much across the shoulders as from back to chest. His neck and the back of his head were much developed and very solid. He had not what we call a waist, nor was he at all stouter round the stomach: on the contrary, he was rather lean, especially in the face, which was burnt to an unwholesome yellow. He would have been good-looking had it not been for a certain puffiness, and for the broad, soft wrinkles, not due to age, which blurred the outlines of his features, making them seem larger and giving the face a general look of coarseness and lack of freshness. His small eyes were hazel, with a daring and even insolent expression: he had very thick but not broad moustaches, the ends of which were bitten off, and his chin, and especially his jaws, were covered with an exceedingly strong, thick, black, two-days-old beard.