a blade frozen
“The moon shone like a blade frozen in blue ice.”
—Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country, translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker, 1957.
a clearer black
“Was the sun already up? The brightness of the snow was more intense, it seemed to be burning icily. Against it, the woman’s hair became a clearer black, touched with a purple sheen.”
—Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country, translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker, 1957.
limitless depth
“The Milky Way. Shimamura too looked up, and he felt himself floating into the Milky Way. Its radiance was so near that it seemed to take him up into it. Was this the bright vastness the poet Basho saw when he wrote of the Milky Way arched over a stormy sea? The Milky Way came down just over there, to wrap the night earth in its naked embrace. There was a terrible voluptuousness about it. Shimamura fancied that his own small shadow was being cast up against it from the earth. Each individual star stood apart from the rest, and even the particles of silver dust in the luminous clouds could be picked out, so clear was the night. The limitless depth of the Milky Way pulled his gaze up into it.”
—Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country, translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker, 1957.
Angel eyes
“Angel eyes, that old devil sent
They glow unbearably bright.
Need I say that my love’s mispent
Mispent with angel eyes tonight?”
—Angel Eyes, written by Matt Dennis in 1947, and sung wonderfully by Chet Baker on the album Chet Baker With Fifty Italian Strings in 1959.
Soft, like a dream
“How could he apologize?
He saw his escape in the Shino water jar. He knelt before it and looked at it appraisingly, as one looks at tea vessels.
A faint red floated up from the white glaze. Kikuji reached to touch the voluptuous and warmly cool surface.
‘Soft, like a dream. Even when you know as little as I do you can appreciate good Shino.’”
—Yasunari Kawabata, Thousand Cranes, translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker, 1959.
The color of faded lipstick
“The white glaze carried a faint suggestion of red. As one looked at it, the red seemed to float up from deep within the white.
The rim was faintly brown. In one place the brown was deeper.
It was there that one drank—
The rim might have been stained by tea, and it might have been stained by lips.
Kikuji looked at the faint brown, and felt that there was a touch of red in it.
Where her mother’s lipstick had sunk in—
There was a red-black in the crackle too.
The color of faded lipstick, the color of a wilted red rose, the color of old, dry blood. . . .”
—Yasunari Kawabata, Thousand Cranes, translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker, 1959.
aura.
One or a group of sensations experienced as premonitions of the onset of an attack of a particular disease. For example; in epilepsy, asthma, or migraine, patients may experience strange odors, flashes of light, itching between the shoulder blades, or other sensations warning of the imminence of an attack.
—Layman’s Medical Dictionary, Harry Swartz, M.D., 1963.
cataract.
Clouding of the lens of the eye that partially or entirely prevents light from entering the eye.
—Layman’s Medical Dictionary, Harry Swartz, M.D., 1963.
cornea.
The transparent front covering of the eyeball, part of the white of the eye, through which is seen the pupil and . . . the iris.
—Layman’s Medical Dictionary, Harry Swartz, M.D., 1963.
heliotherapy.
The treatment of disease by exposing the body to sunlight, used in certain forms of tuberculosis.
—Layman’s Medical Dictionary, Harry Swartz, M.D., 1963.