But it was a jubilant uncoiling power that made the orange ball soar; and the clarity of its flight through the white sky, the parabolic symmetry of its rise and fall, the certainty that the catch would not be fumbled were almost beautiful, an unforced subversion of the surroundings—the concrete, the double fence and its functional Y-shaped posts, the cold. (查看原文)
“I want you to get into a whole new state of mind on this. Anything you’re about to do, pause and think of the consequences. This is a war, Leonard, and you’re a soldier in it.” (查看原文)
Many years later, Leonard had no difficulty at all recalling Maria's face. It shone for him, the way faces do in certain old paintings. In fact there was something almost two-dimensional about it; the hairline was high on the forehead, and at the other end of this long and perfect oval, the jaw was both delicate and forceful, so that when she tilted her head in a characteristic and endearing way, her face appeared as a disc, more of a plane than a sphere, such as a master artist might draw with an inspired stroke. (查看原文)
It was the sort of face, the sort of manner, on to which men were likely to project their own requirements. One could read womanly power into her silent abstraction, or find a childlike dependency in her quiet attentiveness. On the other hand, it was possible she actually embodied these contradictions. (查看原文)
