Study the Map of the World in Laminate

Man with the Glove : "Titian's

portraiture in the 1520's enters a similar phase of dignity and reserve. No expression crosses the face of [...], and the triangular relationship of hands and face functions within a color scheme restricted to black, white, and flesh tones. Yet one cannot escape the solemnity of the gaze, the luminosity of the eyes, the naturalism of the face, and the informality of the pose, all of which give the portrait a strong sense of individual character. Titian clearly sees the limited color palette as a challenge, and the effect of living, warm flesh against the black and white of the costume and the beige of the torn glove, which gives the painting its modern name, is impressive" (645).

Marta : "When a Maid's in the House, I Lose Half My Freedom"

"And this is what I find so difficult about being her mistress. This is a profound difficulty for me, and it creates a conflict with my husband. He always puts it like this: 'Well, I need a maid because you don't want to do anything. You say you'd rather not have a maid because you prefer to do it yourself, but when you do it, you always complain.' And I say, 'I complain about the way you're exploiting me, because if we didn't have a maid and shared the work half and half, wonderful, I wouldn't want to have a maid in the house.' It's even a situation that makes me feel bad. I feel invaded, as if my house were split, with a foreign universe that isn't mine, and that makes me feel constrained. Then he says, 'Well, you spoil the maid because you don't know how to be a mistress, you don't know how to yell at her, how to give her orders'" (200).

When the Skinheads Start to Grow Hair, It's Time to Leave Town "...Prague sounded terribly romantic. There were a lot of writers there. They have a dissident playwright for president. It was easy to get work even if you didn't speak the language. I had the vague impression that it was cheap. I was so ignorant that I didn't yet know they make the best beer in the world.

But I delighted in my ignorance. Prague was my great frontier. Prague was in that long pink stretch of globe that nobody would talk about in grade school, where, if you ventured, you'd encounter Communists" (110).

...

Saudades: "Things began to snowball, and my health began to suffer. I was frequently sick from a combination of loneliness, unhappiness, and lack of antibodies to your basic all-around tropical crud. Disillusioned and lonely, I slept little and was bone weary. It was summer and too hot for my fair skin at the beach. When I went anyway, the beaches were crowded, loud and dirty, and even in the midst of thousands of people having fun, [and] I felt myself to be an insignificant island of anonymity. Sundays dragged, and I longed for the lonely weekend to end so that I could bury myself in the frantic rush of work. Even in the shallow consolation of the office my composure was a façade and my self-confidence precarious. I explained all this to Ana that cool tropical night in Jurumirim.

'I was so lost and confused that day you walked into my office.'

'I remember. I was surprised you worked only two floors below me. What month was that?'

'I'm not sure, but it was just before Easter, the end of summer, because the quaresmeira was blooming in Tijuca along our running route,' I replied. 'I remember seeing you and Roberto running at 5:30 A.M. on the beach. You started saying good morning to me and I couldn't figure out why!'

'I recognized you from work, and I thought it must be hard for a foreign woman here by herself. I wanted you to have a good experience with Brazilians.'

I couldn't easily tell her how her offer of friendship had affected me, because she would have been embarrassed and denied having done anything special. I remember running back to my apartment at the base of Dos Irmãos mountain on dark cloudy mornings, and a tiny woman with Rapunzel-length dark hair and her nondescript running partner waving good morning and startling me out of my isolationist reverie. Some mornings I dreaded seeing them, dreading having to wave back. It's hard to understand now, but my isolation was so profound that I wanted no intruders. When she appeared in my office tentatively offering the treasure of friendship, my life in Brazil began to turn around" (216-217).