Raymond Chandler Quote Of The Week: November 11-17, 2007

The bell didn't work so I rapped on the wooden margin of the screen door. Slow steps shuffled and the door opened and I was looking into dimness at a blowsy woman who was blowing her nose as she opened the door. Her face was gray and puffy. She had weedy hair of that vague color which is neither brown nor blond, that hasn't enough life in it to be ginger, and isn't clean enough to be gray. Her body was thick in a shapeless outing flannel bathrobe many moons past color and design. It was just something around her body. Her toes were large and obvious in a pair of man's slippers of scuffed brown leather.

I said: "Mrs. Florian? Mrs. Jessie Florian""

"Uh-huh," the voice dragged itself out of her throat like a sick man getting out of bed.

-- Farewell, My Lovely, 1940

Comments

[tylerh]

Hey,

I think I had her for a teacher in Junior High...

[Jubal]

LOL.

I love that last line. So vividly descriptive.