A child's hand, undoubtedly Emmie's, had drawn a set of pictures, forming (as it had seemed to Cincinnatus yesterday) a coherent narrative, a promise, a sample of phantasy. First there was a horizontal line - that is, this stone floor; on it was a rudimentary chair somewhat like an insect, and above was a grating made of six squares. Then came the same picture but with the addition of a full moon, the corners of its mouth drooping sourly beyond the grating. Next, a stool composed of three strokes with an eyeless (hence, sleeping) jailer on it and, on the floor, a ring with six keys. Then the same key ring, only a little larger, with a hand, extremely pentadactyl and in a short sleeve, reaching for it. here it begins to get interesting. The door is ajar in the next drawing, and beyond it something looking like a bird's spur-all that is visible of the fleeing prisoner. Then he himself, with commas on his head instead of hair, in a dark little robe, represented to the best of the artist's ability by an isosceles triangle; he is being led by a little girl: prong-like legs, wavy skirt, parallel lines of hair. Then the same again, only in the form of a plan: a square for the cell, an angled line for the corridor, with a dotted line indicating the route and an accordionlike staircase at the end. And finally the epilogue: the dark tower, above it a pleased moon, with the corners of its mouth curling upward.
   No - this was only self-deception, nonsense. The child had doodled aimlessly...Let us copy out the titles and lay the catalogue aside. Yes, the child...With the tip of her tongue showing at the right corner of her mouth, tightly holding the stubby pencil, pressing down upon it with a finger white with effort...And then, after connecting a particularly successful line, leaning back, rolling her head this way and that, wriggling her shoulders, and, going back to work on the paper, shifting her tongue to the left corner...so painstakingly...Nonsense, let's not dwell on it any more...

- Vladimir Nabokov
Invitation to a Beheading

One weary, melancholy, and oppressive morning, when the sky was gray but dully luminous, and the world was nothing but a long brown corridor, I hung up my coat, took out a book, banged my locker shut, and stepped into homeroom, where glancing first at the blackboard, and next at the teacher's desk, and then at the row beside the windows, I uttered a faint gasp, raised my hand to my chest, and instantly lowered my eyes. With fierce, feverish calm I walked to my desk in the middle of the second row from the door. For a few moments I sat without stirring before slowly raising my eyes and turning my head. She was sitting motionless at her desk with her face turned toward the window. Her ankles were crossed and her hands rested lightly in her lap: the back of one hand in the palm of the other. Darkly her shoulders fell forward, giving her back a curve. The windowsill was at the level of her eyes, and her pale, mournful face was lifted slightly but already she was fading, already there was nothing but an empty brown desk . . . She was always absent. Or rather she was so often absent that absence seemed her element, from which she would emerge suddenly with dreamlike vividness--only to fade away again. I seemed to see her fixed in a pose: sitting motionless at her desk with her face turned toward the window. Her ankles were crossed and her hands rested lightly in her lap: the back of one hand in the palm of the other. Darkly her shoulders fell forward, giving her back a curve. The windowsill was at the level of her eyes, and her pale, mournful face was lifted slightly as she looked out at the gloomy sky with eyes narrowed against the light. She wore a black skirt, a white blouse, and a dark green sweater buttoned at the throat but hanging loosely over her shoulders like a cape. Her black, wavy hair was parted on the side and came rippling down over her ear and a little below her shoulder. Through her dark sweater pressed the faint outlines of her shoulderblades, and on her white leg, below the knee, but again she was fading, again there was nothing but an empty brown desk . . . Often when she appeared she would seem deeply weary, drained of energy as her cheeks were drained of color. At such times her pallor, intensified by the blackness of her hair, had about it a touch of the ghastly. And indeed there was something of the phantom about her; and secretly I called her The Phantom Eleanor. I would see her sitting very quietly at her desk before her open German book, staring fixedly at the page, but there was something too rigid about her pose, as if her attention were absent, and sometimes, when she was called on she would give a sudden start, and with a crimson blush on her white, too-white cheek she would say: "Oh, I was . . . I'm sorry, what did you . . ."
    Through her dark sweater pressed the faint outlines of her shoulderblades, and on her white leg, below the knee, was a small purple-yellow bruise.

- Steven Millhauser
Portrait of a Romantic

-    I walked through the mountains today. The weather was damp, and the entire region was gray. But the road was soft and in places very clean. At first I had my coat on; soon, however, I pulled it off, folded it together, and laid it upon my arm. The walk on the wonderful road gave me more and ever more pleasure; first it went up and then descended again. The mountains were huge, they seemed to go around. The whole mountainous world appeared to me like an enormous theater. The road snuggled up splendidly to the mountainsides. Then I came down into a deep ravine, a river roared at my feet, a train rushed past me with magnificent white smoke. The road went through the ravine like a smooth white stream, and as I walked on, to me it was as if the narrow valley were bending and winding around itself. Gray clouds lay on the mountains as though that were their resting place. I met a young traveler with a rucksack on his back, who asked if I had seen two other young fellows. No, I said. Had I come here from very far? Yes, I said, and went farther on my way. Not a long time, and I saw and heard the two young wanderers pass by with music. A village was especially beautiful with humble dwellings set thickly under the white cliffs. I encountered a few carts, otherwise nothing, and I had seen some children on the highway. We don't need to see anything out of the ordinary. We already see so much.

- Robert Walser
A Little Ramble, 1914
tr. by Tom Whalen

    Aunt May never mentioned that again. But she lost no time telling his father about the rabbit. -I scarcely know how to tell you, she commenced, and when Gwyon looked satisfactorily alarmed she went on, -Your son has learned, somewhere, to swear. It's scarcely surprising, with a grandfather who talks to him just the way he talks to his cronies in the saloon, and fills him full of all kinds of drivel...She went on to explain that she had taken a toy away from Wyatt every time this happened (being lenient), until he was left with only one, a cloth rabbit. (For the truth of that, the words which cost him those treasures were darn and heck: she seemed to know their euphemisitic derivation well enough.)
    -And then, the last straw, I...I can scarcely repeat his words. Though Heaven knows how they are engraved on my memory. He knew I was in the room, he was sitting on the floor with his last toy, this rabbit, and he said...your son said, as clearly as I'm speaking now, he said, "You're the by-Goddest rabbit I ever dam saw!" At which, hearing herself speak this, Aunt May almost sobbed crying out, -What kind of Christian mi...mish...minister do you think he will make?

- William Gaddis
The Recognitions

The soldier and the civilian clinked glasses and the latter whispered again: 'Once a black pom which I needed for some kennels over the Klamovka wouldn't look at sausage either. I followed it for three days, until I couldn't hold out any longer and asked the lady who was leading it straight out what it actually was fed on, because it was so beautiful. The lady was flattered and said that it liked cutlets best. And so I bought it a schnitzel. I thought a schnitzel was better. And do you know the brute wouldn't even look at it, because the schnitzel was veal and it was used to pork. So after all I had to buy it a pork cutlet. I let the dog smell it first, and then I ran away with the dog following me. the lady shouted: "Puntik, Puntik!", but where was her deaf Puntik? It ran after the pork cutlet as far as the corner and beyond. Then I put a lead round its neck and the next day it was already in the kennels over the Klamovka. It had a patch of white tufts under its neck and they blacked it over and nobody recognized it. But the other dogs, and there were a lot of them, all went for fried horsemeat sausage. It would be best if you asked the maid what the dog likes to eat most; you're a soldier, you've a fine figure and she's more likely to tell you. I've already asked her, but she looked at me as though she wanted to stab me and said: "What business is it of yours?" She isn't very pretty, she's like a monkey but with a soldier like you she'll certainly talk.'

- Jaroslav Hašek
The Good Soldier Svejk

The Paris Review interviewed Isak Dinesen in 1956:

DINESEN

I live on the North Sea, halfway between Copenhagen and Elsinore.

INTERVIEWER

Perhaps halfway between Shiraz and Atlantis?

DINESEN

. . . Halfway between that island in The Tempest and wherever I am.

(Waiter takes order; luncheon is served.)

DINESEN

I'll have a cigarette now. Do you mind if we just stay here for a while? I hate to change once I'm installed in a décor I like. People are always telling me to hurry up or come on and do this or do that. Once when I was sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and there were albatrosses, people kept saying, “Why do you stay on deck? Come on in.” They said, “It's time for lunch,” and I said, “Damn lunch.” I said, “I can eat lunch any day, but I shan't see albatrosses again.” Such wingspread!

    "However," observed the composer of ballads, who previously had opened his mouth only to gulp down whatever was put into it, "I know men of talent who actually commend the judgment of 'our good Parisians.' I myself have some reputation as a musician," he added modestly, "which at present I owe to no more than my little vaudeville tunes and the success of my quadrilles in the salons; but I fully expect to compete, in the near future, a requiem mass composed for the anniversary of Beethoven's death, which I believe will be better understood in Paris than anywhere else. Will monsieur do me the honor of coming to hear it?" he inquired of Andrea.
    "Thank you," the count replied. "I am not endowed with organs requisite for the appreciation of French vocal music. But if you were dead, monsieur, and Beethoven had written the requiem, I should not fail to come and hear it."

- Honoré de Balzac
"Gambara"