A photograph taken in the back yard, near the edge of the river. A white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, a pair of trousers, flannels most likely, sloping shoulders and slightly rounded arms. An expression of discontent on his face, maybe he wasn’t quite ready for the photograph. He is forty years old. Nothing in the picture to account for the past suffering, or his hopes for the future. Just the obvious signs of age—the slight paunch, the receding hairline—and those, more discreet, of his social condition—his arms hanging stiffly at his sides and the washhouse and lavatory as a setting, hardly
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