What does "printed upon a husk" mean?

Question

In THE SAINT by V.S. PRITCHETT:

The man is a saint, I thought. As saintly as any of those gold-leaf figures in the churches of Sicily. Golden, he sat in the punt. Golden, he sat for the next hour as I paddled him down the river. Golden and bored. Golden as we landed at the town and as we walked up the street back to my uncle's house. There he refused to change his clothes or to sit by a fire. He kept an eye on the time for his train back to London. By no word did he acknowledge the disasters or the beauties of the world. If they were printed upon him, they were printed upon a husk.

What does "printed upon a husk" mean here? Why would someone suddenly print them(disasters and beauties I suppose) on him? I could understand its literal meaning but nothing more.

P.S. He(Mr. Timberlake) was very wet in the story if that matters.

Answer 1

printed here is similar to imprinted. In other words, if the disasters or beauties of the world had an effect on him. We say: x was imprinted on someone's mind, for example.

on a husk or shell of a man. It suggests he has no substance, only an outside covering, like a corn hush or empty shell (an animal or plant).

Meaning: His interior self was destroyed or no longer existed.