He [a child of seven or eight] cast a short blue shadow of the ground, and so did I, but in addition to that sketchy, and flat, and unstable companion which he and I owed to the sun and wich vanished in dull weather, I possessed yet another shadow, a palpable reflection of my corporal self, that I always had by me, at my left side, whereas my visitor had somehow manage to lose his, or had unhooked it and left it at home.

Vladimir Nabokov, "Scenes from the life of a Double Monster", in Nabokov's Dozen

I saw a rose in a glass on the table — the sugar pink of its obvious beauty, the parasitic air bubbles clinging to its stem. Her two spare dresses were gone, her comb was gone, her chequered coat was gone, and so was the mauve hair-band with a mauve bow that had been her hat. Ther was no note pinned to the pillow, nothing at all in the room to enlighten me, for of course the rose was merely what French rhymsters call ''une cheville''.

Vladimir Nabokov, "That in Aleppo once…", in Nabokov's Dozen