La Zamira, for it was truly she, so disheveled and ungirt, pushing a broom, preceded by a conspicuous cluster of domestic fluffs and straws and indefinable rubbish, received the two men with the salivary lubricity of her professional smile and the peasant falsity of her gaze. The resultant grimace, made livid by the window and the uncertain whiteness of the weather, then kindled by a sudden dart of the sun was meant to disguise as extremely welcome this most unwelcome visit.

Carlo Emilio Gadda, 'That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana'