Naomi Press

So let the door be closed leaving but a thin line of taut light underneath, let that lamp go out too in the neighbouring room where Sebastian has gone to bed; let the beautiful olivaceous house on the Nova embankment fade out gradually in the grey-blue frosty night, with gently falling snowflakes lingering in the moon-white blaze of the tall street lamp and powdering the mighty limbs of the two bearded corbel: figures which support with an Atlas-like effort the oriel of my father's room. My father is dead, Sebastian is asleep, or at least mouse-quiet, in the next room — and I am lying in bed, wide awake, staring into the darkness.

getting something for nothing,

The first twenty pages were adorned with a number of little plants

Fancy flower of paper, found in Aqua’s purse

out of spite and pity

After her death in 1883, Van computed that in the course of thirteen years,

Colonel Erminin, a widower, whose liver, he said in a note, was behaving like a pecheneg;

‘Nicest!’

‘Incest,’ said Ada instantly.

‘I give up,’ said Grace. ‘We need a dictionary to check your little inventions.’

‘Are we Mesopotamians?’ asked Lucette.

‘We are Hippopotamians,’ said Van. ‘Come,’ he added, ‘we have not yet ploughed today.’

Endlessly, steadily, delicately, Van would brush his lips against hers, teasing their burning bloom, back and forth, right, left, life, death