Na’s Reviews > The Crux > Status Update

“Erect, slender, graceful, the long lines of her young body draped in soft white, and her dark head, crowned and shining, poised on its white column, rising from the shimmering lace.”
Beautiful imagery.

“The girl” seems to be a reoccurring phrase when referring to Vivian. Dated language or author’s diction? Cordial girl. Woman’s duty. Reference to Vivian’s immaturity & incompetence to find a man or illustrating Vivian’s independence & that her fate does not lie in marriage being a woman’s duty and instead she has her own “girl’s” duty?

Excavate — to make hollow
Marriage is a woman’s duty.
Derisive — mocking
Jocose — playful, humorous
Pendulum — a body suspended from a fixed point moved by gravity & momentum
Perennial — everlasting
Umbrage — annoyance/shadow
“Speech is silver, silence is golden.”
Hazily brilliant moon. The girl. Not woman.

Dalliance — casual romantic/sexual relationship
Languish — weaken
Perforce — necessarily, inevitability
Surcharge — additional charge
Torrent — flood, downpour
Surmise — guess
Lull — the calm
Conscientious — careful, diligent

“For a long time she lay there watching the changing play of moonlight on the floor.”