Pride and Prejudice by Raymond Chandler
Our mother looked Jane straight in the eye and put out a cigarette in her empty teacup. “Look, buster. I don’t know who he is and I don’t care, but I’ll tell you one thing, see: A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
Jane met her gaze coolly, then rose. “So long, punks. I got a carriage to catch and a ball to attend.”
Jane walked into that ball with enough sex appeal to stampede a businessmen’s lunch. She stopped in front of a gentleman with a tailcoat you could have used as a tablecloth. He was a blond, a blond that could have made a bishop’s wife kick a hole through a stained-glass window.
“You are Mr. Bingley, of Netherfield Park, are you not?” she said.
“Check.”
They danced. Everyone danced, but me and a man I saw standing by the door. He had eyes like strange sins and he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a boiled potato.
“The name’s Bennet,” I said. “Elizabeth Bennet.”
“Fitzwilliam Darcy,” he said in a tone as pleasant as splinter.
“Tall, aren’t you?” I remarked.
“I didn’t mean to be,” he said.
I didn’t expect what happened next. Without warning, he proceeded to aggressively not ask me to dance.
War and Peace by Haruki Murakami
At the entrance to the Arbát Square an immense expanse of dark starry sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the Prechístenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant comet of 1812—the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and the end of the world. Pierre watched its journey across the sky, then paused as its luminous tail passed close to the moon, which was small and red next to its white brilliance. But wait, he thought. That couldn’t be the moon. If it was, then what was the glowing white orb just above it and to the left? There couldn’t be, or were there, two moons? He rubbed his eyes.
“They are beautiful, aren’t they?” an unfamiliar woman’s voice said behind him.
Pierre opened his eyes and spun around. The woman standing in front of him was attractive and well-dressed except for a strange red vinyl hat. She wore a neat, peach-colored pencil dress that fell below her knees with a crisp white blazer and matching high heels.
“Don’t be alarmed, Count Bezukhov,” she said, approaching him with slow but confident steps. “I can see them, too. Both of them. You’re not dreaming.”
He stared at her, bewildered. “Have we met?” he finally asked.
“No,” she said, her tone neutral. “But we can discuss it tomorrow. Meet me at ten o’clock, in the tea room of the hotel across from Shinjuku station. Here’s my card.”
Pierre took the card, and the mysterious woman turned on her neat high heel and walked away. As she faded into the darkness, Pierre heard orchestral music in the distance. It sounded like the work of a composer he knew but couldn’t place. Finally he looked down at the card in his hand. It was blank.
Little Women by George R. R. Martin
Amy March had never seen such lovely limes. She couldn’t wait until she got to school before opening the brown paper parcel to taste one of her treasures. She knew from the first dainty bite at the pickled rind that she was lost. It was flawless, the best she’d tasted. The tartness of the citrus and the saltiness of the brine didn’t mask the sweet floral of the juice beneath, but rather the flavors blossomed together like different petals of the same, exotically and extravagantly beautiful flower. As she cast aside restraint and hungrily devoured the rest of the first lime, she imagined it as the final course in the kind of extravagant meal she would one day order prepared for her when she was a fine lady.
First the bread, a crusty brown loaf that would be soft and white inside, with warmth escaping when she cracked it open, served with [food description continues for three (3) pages].
It was not without regret that she remembered her words to Meg: “I’ve had ever so many limes but haven’t returned them, and I ought, for they are debts of honor, you know.” Debts of honor must be paid, especially by a daughter of House March. She closed the parcel with heroic restraint and stored it in her desk.
Word spread like wildfire through the girls that Amy had the limes to pay her debts and then some, and when the bastard and traitor Jenny Snow whispered in Mr. Davis’s ear that Amy March had two dozen perfect pickled limes tucked away in her desk, the other girls were roused with indignation.
Amy moved to obey the cruel man’s command to throw the full feast of the twenty-four remaining limes out the window. As the first pair hit the snow, she heard a barely muffled gasp behind her. At the second pair, two or three cries of indignation. At the third pair, she heard the scraping of chairs against floorboards and turned to see Mary Kingsley and Katy Brown storming towards the front of the room, sharpened pencils in hand. Mr. Davis’s eyes widened as Mary reached him, and he grasped her wrist. Mary had only one hand, but that was quick. She twisted free of the old man's grasp, shoved the pencil into Davis's belly, and yanked it out again, all red. And then the world went mad.
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