While rereading the superb Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett, the autobiography by James Knowlson written with Beckett’s blessing, I came across this telling and amazing passage from Dream of Fair to Middling Women, Beckett’s first novel, published in 1932:

He lay lapped in a beatitude of indolence that was smoother than oil and [...]

The lavender aroma of her apartment lends itself to musty carpet and stale cigarette smoke to the eventual car exhaust and bad food smells as she follows me out, heavy glass swinging shut behind her to the morning orchestra of traffic. Her short stature belies her Miss America gait. She is a scarved, lithe stack [...]