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