In short, I discovered that once a week, at her house, she betrayed me with a respectable paterfamilias, who, incidentally, was so infernally meticulous that he would bring his own shoe trees with him.

the level of her lemonade sinking with a kind of childish celerity

I knew that if I mentioned his name there would flash in the eyes of each of them the same sacerdotal alarm

Its utter mediocrity was stressed by the fraudulent chic of alliterations and the meretricious richness of illiterate rhymes.

For the sake of somehow starting our talk, I shall temporarily accept your refusal. Let us proceed ab ovo.

this vanilla-scented and seemingly witch-charmed water had probably served an ablutionary purpose

On the day of the outing the weather was cold and restless, a nacreous sky skimmed overhead

When nowadays in some Russian household the gramophone is put on, and I hear her canned contralto

it is with something of a shudder that I recall the meretricious imitation she gave of reaching her vocal climax

heavily adumbrated, diamond-bright eye squinting like that of a timorous steed.