Wednesday, June 15, 2016

...............Spanish moss


Life in the Brothel "The establishment of these houses of prostitution deplores every man who is concerned with public morals. It doesn't surprise me that the police oppose the establishment of these houses with all their power. They do not authorize prostitution, but do everything in their power to squash it."!Here we see prostitutes inside a brothel, perhaps waiting for clients. This picture was painted in 1894 by Toulouse-Lautrec.

Posted by Thong inside on >that's the one of my favorite All houses of prostitution had to be registered with the Gendarmerie Royale and the prefecture of police, and every woman who worked in a brothel had to be registered with the prefecture as well. If for some reason the prostitute was married, it was required that she have the written consent of her spouse to work there. Police and the Brothel There were also regulations passed against brothels. In 1823, around the same time as the regulations regarding streetwalking were passed, public opinion began to shift, turned against the brothel as a house of ill repute, and a moral pock mark on society. Therefore, brothels were required to be inconspicuous. They were required to have their shades drawn at all times during the day.Parisian Brothel
the contrast and perhaps in part because of her connections with Charles de Julie, la demoiselle Dupoint far much less well to do, immediately on receiving the important neighbour;s complaint andurge on by Louise Besile de Bernage' who with his own reason decided to get involved in the case and court's order by Berryerto get maquerelle's arrested.

Posted by Thongs Inn woke up at three and I have imagined on March 12th, 2016

fanpage Dang The olds . But Thong D. & Patume,so,we're like Spanish moss and the old oak tree cling to each other all along
Spanish moss dwelling upon your trunk..The swamps with bald cypress trees are fundamental for the protection of the coastal area along the Gulf of Mexico for extreme coastal erosion and floodings that occur during hurricane storms. The forested swamps act as a "speed bump" for the storm surge caused by the hurricane. These hurricanes, coming from over the sea, diminish in force when they are moving across the swamps and bayous before entering the mainland.


where the typical, southern atmosphere can be tasted. I visited the area around New Orleans during two weeks and had myself a great, relaxing time in St. Francisville. If I could only still be resting on a porch beneath southern live oaks heavily loaded with spanish moss...

Thursday, April 14, 2016

....Hannah's la Debutante



Debutante - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debutante A debutante or deb (from the French débutante, "female beginner") is a girl or .... Symphony Orchestra Presentation Ball and La Fiesta de las Seis Banderas, ... The Edwardian DebutanteEdwardian Promenade ... www.edwardianpromenade.com/society/the-edwardian-debutante/ Dec 5, 2013 - Where a girl was concerned, it was the duty of everyone–her mother, her ... An American debutante's entrance into society was marked by the ... Debutante & Presentation — La Sposa Bridal Salon www.lasposalaredo.com/debutante-presentation/ A debutante (from the French débutante, "female beginner") is a girl or young lady who has reached the age of maturity and, as a new adult, is introduced to ... British girls take centre stage at New York Debutante Ball ... www.dailymail.co.uk/.../British-girls-centre-stage-New-York-Debutante-... Dec 30, 2014 - British girls take centre stage at New York Debutante Ball: Daughter of ... The participating young women are the crème de la crème of high ...People also ask Who is Hannah Montana? When did Hannah Montana forever start? What episode does Oliver find out about Hannah Montana? Is Hannah Montana real? Hannah Montana, le film Bande-annonce VF - AlloCiné Video for debut de hannah montana▶ 1:26 www.allocine.fr › ... › Hannah Montana, le film Apr 20, 2009 Hannah Montana, le film, un film de Peter Chelsom. ... Le début de la bande annonce est pas mal, des fois ... Hannah Montana - Disney Wiki - Wikia disney.wikia.com/wiki/Hannah_Montana Hannah Montana is an American television series, which debuted on March 24, ... Shanica Knowles as Amber Addison; Anna Maria Perez de Tagle as Ashley ... 10 years after Disney's Hannah Montana debuted, how Miley www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Broken-engagements-drugs-nudity-oh-10-years-Di... Mar 24, 2016 - 10 years after Disney's Hannah Montana debuted, how Miley Cyrus ..... Giddy Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi co-ordinate in hers and ... Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus - Wikiwand www.wikiwand.com/ro/Hannah_Montana_2/Meet_Miley_Cyrus Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus este a doua coloană sonoră a serialului american Hannah Montana și albumul solo de debut a lui Miley Cyrus, ... ¡Hannah Montana llegó a su décimo aniversario y así lucen ... la.eonline.com/.../hannah-montana-llego-a-su-decimo-...

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

.....Athena


Poseidon, whom she loved in return, she forgot her vows, and became united to him in marriage. For this offence she was punished by the goddess in a most terrible manner. Each wavy lock of the beautiful hair which had so charmed her husband, was changed into a venomous snake; her once gentle, love-inspiring eyes now became blood-shot, furious orbs, which excited fear and disgust in the mind of the beholder; whilst her former roseate hue and milk-white skin assumed a loathsome greenish tinge.
Athena
....
} } }); // Now that we've initialized the JavaScript SDK, we call // FB.getLoginStatus(). This function gets the state of the // person visiting this page and can return one of three states to // the callback you provide. They can be: // // 1. Logged into your app ('connected') // 2. Logged into Facebook, but not your app ('not_authorized') // 3. Not logged into Facebook and can't tell if they are logged into // your app or not. // // These three cases are handled in the callback function. FB.getLoginStatus(function(response) { statusChangeCallback(response); }); }; // Load the SDK asynchronously (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // Here we run a very simple test of the Graph API after login is // successful. See statusChangeCallback() for when this call is made. function testAPI() { console.log('Welcome! Fetching your information.... '); FB.api('/me', function(response) { console.log('Successful login for: ' + response.name); document.getElementById('status').innerHTML = 'Thanks for logging in, ' + response.name + '!'; }); }
Now you can test your app by going to the URL where you uploaded this HTML. Open your JavaScript console, and you'll see the testAPI() function display a message with your name in the console log. Congratulations, at this stage you've actually built a really basic page with Facebook Login. You can use this as the starting point for your own app, but it will be useful to read on and understand what is happening in the code above. Steps for Using Facebook Login With the JavaScript SDK There are a few steps that you will need to follow to integrate Facebook Login into your web application, most of which are included in the quickstart example at the top of this page. At a high level those are: Checking the login status to see if someone's already logged into your app. During this step, you also should check to see if someone has previously logged into your app, but is not currently logged in. If they are not logged in, invoke the login dialog and ask for a set of data permissions. Verify their identity. Store the resulting access token. Make API calls. Log out. Checking login status The first step when loading your web page is figuring out if a person is already logged into your app with Facebook login. You start that process with a call to FB.getLoginStatus. That function will trigger a call to Facebook to get the login status and call your callback function with the results. Taken from the sample code above, here's some of the code that's run during page load to check a person's login status: FB.getLoginStatus(function(response) { statusChangeCallback(response); }); The response object that's provided to your callback contains a number of fields: { status: 'connected', authResponse: { accessToken: '...', expiresIn:'...', signedRequest:'...', userID:'...' } } status specifies the login status of the person using the app. The status can be one of the following: connected. The person is logged into Facebook, and has logged into your app. not_authorized. The person is logged into Facebook, but has not logged into your app. unknown. The person is not logged into Facebook, so you don't know if they've logged into your app. Or FB.logout() was called before and therefore, it cannot connect to Facebook. authResponse is included if the status is connected and is made up of the following: accessToken. Contains an access token for the person using the app. expiresIn. Indicates the UNIX time when the token expires and needs to be renewed. signedRequest. A signed parameter that contains information about the person using the app. userID is the ID of the person using the app. Once your app knows the login status of the person using it, it can do one of the following: If the person is logged into Facebook and your app, redirect them to your app's logged in experience. If the person isn't logged into your app, or isn't logged into Facebook, prompt them with the Login dialog with FB.login() or show them the Login Button. Logging people in If people using your app aren't logged into your app or not logged into Facebook, you can use the Login dialog to prompt them to do both. Various versions of the dialog are shown below. If they aren't logged into Facebook, they'll first be prompted to log in and then move on to logging in to your app. The JavaScript SDK automatically detects this, so you don't need to do anything extra to enable this behavior. There are two ways to log someone in: Use the Login Button. Use FB.login() from the JavaScript SDK. Using the Login Button Including the Login Button into your page is easy. Visit the documentation for the login button and set the button up the way you want. Then click Get Code and it will show you the code you need to display the button on your page. Note that in the example at the start of this document, we use the onlogin attribute on the button to set up a JavaScript callback that checks the login status to see if the person logged in successfully: This is the callback. It calls FB.getLoginStatus() to get the most recent login state. (statusChangeCallback() is a function that's part of the example that processes the response.) function checkLoginState() { FB.getLoginStatus(function(response) { statusChangeCallback(response); }); } Invoking the Login Dialog with the JavaScript SDK For apps that want to use their own button, you can invoke the Login Dialog with a simple call to FB.login(): FB.login(function(response){ // Handle the response object, like in statusChangeCallback() in our demo // code. }); As noted in the reference docs for this function, it results in a popup window showing the Login dialog, and therefore should only be invoked as a result of someone clicking an HTML button (so that the popup isn't blocked by browsers). There is an optional scope parameter that can be passed along with the function call that is a comma separated list of permissions to request from the person using the app. Here's how you would call FB.login() with the same scope as the Login Button we used above. In this case, it would ask for a person's email address and a list of friends who also use the app: FB.login(function(response) { // handle the response }, {scope: 'public_profile,email'}); Handling Login dialog response At this point in the login flow, your app displays the Login dialog, which gives people the choice of whether to cancel or to enable the app to access their data. Whatever choice people make, the browser returns to the app and response data indicating whether they're connected or cancelled is sent to your app. When your app uses the JavaScript SDK, it returns an authResponse object to the callback specified when you made the FB.login() call: This response can be detected and handled within the FB.login call, like this: FB.login(function(response) { if (response.status === 'connected') { // Logged into your app and Facebook. } else if (response.status === 'not_authorized') { // The person is logged into Facebook, but not your app. } else { // The person is not logged into Facebook, so we're not sure if // they are logged into this app or not. } }); Asking for Permissions One of the most important parts of launching the Login Dialog is choosing what data your app would like access to. These examples have all used the scope parameter, which is how you ask for access to someone's data. These are all called Permissions. Permissions are covered in depth in our permissions guide. However, there are a few things to remember when dealing with permissions and the login dialog: You ask for permissions when the dialog is created. The resulting set of permissions is tied to the access token that's returned. Other platforms may have a different set of permissions. For example, on iOS you can ask for places a person's been tagged, while in the web version of your app that permission is not required for the experience. You can add permissions later when you need more capabilities. When you need a new permission, you simply add the permission you need to the list you've already granted, re-launch the Login Dialog and it will ask for the new permission. The Login Dialog lets people decline to share certain permissions with your app that you ask for. Your app should handle this case. Learn more about this in our permissions dialog. Apps that ask for more than public_profile, email and user_friends must be reviewed by Facebook before they can be made available to the general public. Learn more in our documentation for login review and our general review guidelines. Storing Access Tokens At the end of the login process, an access token is generated. This access token is the thing that's passed along with every API call as proof that the call was made by a specific person from a specific app. The Facebook SDK for JavaScript automatically handles access token storage and tracking of login status in the browser, so nothing is needed for you to store access tokens in the browser itself. However, a common pattern is to take the access token and pass it back to a server and the server makes calls on behalf of a person. In order to get the token from the browser you can use the response object that's returned via FB.getLoginStatus(): FB.getLoginStatus(function(response) { if (response.status === 'connected') { console.log(response.authResponse.accessToken); } }); The token is an opaque string of variable length. Also keep in mind that the access tokens that are generated in browsers generally have a lifetime of only a couple of hours and are automatically refreshed by the JavaScript SDK. If you are making calls from a server, you will need to generate a long lived token, which is covered at length in our access token documentation. Verifying identity Apps normally need to confirm that the response from the Login dialog was made from the same person who started it. If you're using Facebook's JavaScript SDK it automatically performs these checks so nothing is required, assuming that you're only making calls from the browser. If you decide to send it back to the server, you should make sure you re-verify the access token once it gets to the server. Re-verifying the token is covered in our documentation on manually building login flows. You'll need to verify that the app_id and user_id match what you expected from the access token debug endpoint. Make API calls At this point in the flow, the person is authenticated and logged in. Your app is now ready to make API calls on their behalf from the browser. In the browser, the easiest way to do that is with the FB.api() call. FB.api() will automatically add the access token to the call. This code: FB.api('/me', function(response) { console.log(JSON.stringify(response)); }); Will return an array of values: { "id":"101540562372987329832845483", "email":"example@example.com", "first_name":"Bob", [ ... ] } If you're making calls server side with the access token, you can use an SDK on the server to make similar calls. Many people use PHP to build web applications. You can find some examples of making server-side API calls in our PHP SDK documentation. Logging people out You can log people out of your app by attaching the JavaScript SDK function FB.logout to a button or a link, as follows: FB.logout(function(response) { // Person is now logged out }); Note: This function call may also log the person out of Facebook. Consider the 3 scenarios below: A person logs into Facebook, then logs into your app. Upon logging out from your app, the person is still logged into Facebook. A person logs into your app and into Facebook as part of your app's login flow. Upon logging out from your app, the user is also logged out of Facebook. A person logs into another app and into Facebook as part of the other app's login flow, then logs into your app. Upon logging out from either app, the user is logged out of Facebook. Additionally, logging out is not the same as revoking login permission (removing previously granted authentication), which can be performed separately. Because of this your app should be built in such a way that it doesn't automatically force people who have logged out back to the Login dialog. Adding Permissions One of the best practices with Facebook Login is to not request read permissions and publishing permissions at the same time. To support this your app can ask for more permissions later, well after someone has logged in. To do that, all you have to do is launch the Login Dialog with the new permission that you're asking for. For example, let's say you had a Login Button with the following permissions: The dialog would look like this: And if you checked /me/permissions for permissions granted after the person accepted you would find this: {"data": [ { "permission":"public_profile", "status":"granted" }, { "permission":"email", "status":"granted" } ] } If you wanted to add the user_friends permission later, you could re-launch it with the FB.login() function like this: FB.login(function(response) { console.log(response); }, {scope: 'user_friends'}); (This function must be called from a button's event handler otherwise it's likely to be blocked by browser popup blockers.) The dialog that it generates looks like this: Note that it only asks for the new permission. If you accept the new permission checking /me/permissions will result in this: {"data": [ { "permission":"public_profile", "status":"granted" }, { "permission":"email", "status":"granted" }, { "permission":"user_friends", "status":"granted" } ] } Note that the new user_friends permission has been added to the list of allowed permissions. Re-asking for Declined Permissions Facebook Login lets people decline sharing some permissions with your app. The Login Dialog contains a screen that looks like this: The public_profile permission is always required and greyed out because it can't be disabled. However, if someone were to uncheck user_likes (Likes) in this example, checking /me/permissions for what permissions have been granted results in: { "data": [ { "permission":"public_profile", "status":"granted" }, { "permission":"user_likes", "status":"declined" } ] } Note that user_likes has been declined instead of granted. It's OK to ask a person once to grant your app permissions that they've declined. You should have a screen of education on why you think they should grant the permission to you and then re-ask. But if you use the method described in the [previous section)(#re-launching-permissions-dialog) the Login Dialog won't ask for that permission. This is because once someone has declined a permission, the Login Dialog will not re-ask them for it unless you explicitly tell the dialog you're re-asking for a declined permission. You do this by adding the auth_type: rerequest flag to your FB.login() call: FB.login( function(response) { console.log(response); }, { scope: 'user_likes', auth_type: 'rerequest' } ); When you do that, the Login Dialog will re-ask for the declined permission. The dialog will look very much like the dialog in the section on re-asking for permissions but will let you re-ask for a declined permission. Detecting when people uninstall apps People are able to uninstall apps via Facebook.com without interacting with the app itself. To help apps detect when this has happened, we allow them to provide a de-authorize callback URL which will be pinged whenever this occurs. You can enable a deauthorize callback via the App Dashboard. Just go to your app, then choose the Settings menu, and finally the Advanced tab. A text field is provided for the Deauthorize Callback URL. Whenever a user of your app de-authorizes it, this URL will be sent an HTTP POST containing a signed request. Read our guide to parsing the signed request to see how to decode this to find out the user ID that triggered the callback. Additional Resources Login Dialog Facebook SDK for JavaScript Reference for FB.login() Login Button A simple way to trigger the Login Dialog. Subscribe to Changes
. Seeing herself thus transformed into so repulsive an object, Medusa fled from her home, never to return. Wandering about, abhorred, dreaded, and shunned by all the world, she now developed into a character, worthy of her outward appearance. In her despair she fled to Africa, where, as she passed restlessly from place to place, infant snakes dropped from her hair, and thus, according to the belief of the ancients, that country became the hotbed of these venomous reptiles. With the curse of Athene upon her, she turned into stone whomsoever she gazed upon, till at last, after a life of nameless misery, deliverance came to her in the shape of death, at the hands of Perseus Athena was the Greek virgin goddess of reason, intelligent activity, arts and literature. She was the daughter of Zeus; her birth is unique in that she did not have a mother. Instead, she sprang full grown and clad in armour from Zeus' forehead. She was fierce and brave in battle; however, she only took part in wars that defended the state and home from outside enemies. She was the patron of the city, handcraft, and agriculture. She invented the bridle, which permitted man to tame horses, the trumpet, the flute, the pot, the rake, the plow, the yoke, the ship, and the chariot. She was the embodiment of wisdom, reason, and purity. She was Zeus' favourite child and was allowed to use his weapons including his thunderbolt. Her holy tree was the olive tree and she was often symbolised as an owl.. She became the patron goddess of Athens after winning a contest against Poseidon by offering the olive tree to the Athenians. It is evident that Athena and Athens derive from the same root; Athens (or Athenae) is in plural form, because it represents the sisterhood of the goddess that existed there. Similarly, Athena was called Mykene in the city of Mycenae (also a plural after the respective sisterhood), and Thebe in the city of Thebes (or Thebae, both plural forms). Athena Is also called Minerva, Athina, Athene. See Also: Birth of Athena, Zeus, Poseidon, Theogony

....Gea

MEDUSAhttp://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Creatures/Medusa/medusa.html The Medusa was an ugly creature. Let's have a look at how she came into existence, for she wasn't always that ugly... Again, the Gods played their role. The Medusa was the daughter of Phorkys and Keto, the children of Gaea (Earth) and cOeanus (Ocean). She was one of the three sisters known as the Gorgons. The other two sisters were Sthenno andE uryale. Medusa was a monster, one of the Gorgon sisters and daughter of Phorkys and Keto, the children of Gaea (Earth) and Oceanus (Ocean). She had the face of an ugly woman with snakes instead of hair; anyone who looked into her eyes was immediately turned to stone. Her sisters were Sthenno and Euryale, but Medusa was the only mortal of the three. She was originally a golden-haired, fair maiden, who, as a priestess of Athena, was devoted to a life of celibacy; however, after being wooed by Poseidon and falling for him, she forgot her vows and married him. For this offence, she was punished by the goddess in a most terrible manner. Each wavy lock of the beautiful hair that had charmed her husband was changed into a venomous snake; her once gentle, love-inspiring eyes turned into blood-shot, furious orbs, which excited fear and disgust in the mind of the onlooker; whilst her former roseate hue and milk-white skin assumed a loathsome greenish tinge. Seeing herself transformed into such a repulsive creature, Medusa fled her home, never to return. Wandering about, abhorred, dreaded, and shunned by the rest of the world, she turned into a character worthy of her outer appearance. In her despair, she fled to Africa, where, while wandering restlessly from place to place, young snakes dropped from her hair; that is how, according to the ancient Greeks, Africa became a hotbed of venomous reptiles. With the curse of Athena upon her, she turned into stone whomever she gazed upon, till at last, after a life of nameless misery, deliverance came to her in the shape of death, at the hands of Perseus. See Also: Perseus, Adventures of Perseus, Pegasus, Gaea, Oceanus, Athena Medusa was the only mortal out of the three. She was originally a golden-haired and very beautiful maiden, who, as a priestess of Athena, was devoted to a life of celibacy; but, being wooed by Poseidon, whom she loved in return, she forgot her vows, and became united to him in marriage. For this offence she was punished by the goddess in a most terrible manner. Each wavy lock of the beautiful hair which had so charmed her husband, was changed into a venomous snake; her once gentle, love-inspiring eyes now became blood-shot, furious orbs, which excited fear and disgust in the mind of the beholder; whilst her former roseate hue and milk-white skin assumed a loathsome greenish tinge. Seeing herself thus transformed into so repulsive an object, Medusa fled from her home, never to return. Wandering about, abhorred, dreaded, and shunned by all the world, she now developed into a character, worthy of her outward appearance. In her despair she fled to Africa, where, as she passed restlessly from place to place, infant snakes dropped from her hair, and thus, according to the belief of the ancients, that country became the hotbed of these venomous reptiles. With the curse of Athene upon her, she turned into stone whomsoever she gazed upon, till at last, after a life of nameless misery, deliverance came to her in the shape of death, at the hands of Perseus. http://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Gaea/gaea.html

....set up


Untitled Document

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Changing the Language In the basic setup snippet, the en_US version of the SDK is initialized, which means that all of the Facebook-generated buttons and plugins used on your site will be in US English. (However, pop-up dialogs generated by Facebook like the Login Dialog will be in the language the person has chosen on Facebook, even if they differ from what you've selected.) You can change this language by changing the js.src value in the snippet. Take a look at Localization to see the different locales that can be used. For example, if your site is in Spanish, using the following code to load the SDK will cause all Social Plugins to be rendered in Spanish. Untitled Document





MEDUSA
The Medusa was an ugly creature. Let's have a look at how she came into existence, for she wasn't always that ugly... Again, the Gods played their role.
The
Medusa was the daughter of Phorkys and Keto, the children of Gaea (Earth) and cOeanus (Ocean). She was one of the three sisters known as the Gorgons. The other two sisters were Sthenno andE uryale.
Medusa was the only mortal out of the three.
She was originally a golden-haired and very beautiful maiden, who, as a priestess of
Athena, was devoted to a life of celibacy; but, being wooed by Poseidon, whom she loved in return, she forgot her vows, and became united to him in marriage. For this offence she was punished by the goddess in a most terrible manner. Each wavy lock of the beautiful hair which had so charmed her husband, was changed into a venomous snake; her once gentle, love-inspiring eyes now became blood-shot, furious orbs, which excited fear and disgust in the mind of the beholder; whilst her former roseate hue and milk-white skin assumed a loathsome greenish tinge.
Seeing herself thus transformed into so repulsive an object,
Medusa fled from her home, never to return. Wandering about, abhorred, dreaded, and shunned by all the world, she now developed into a character, worthy of her outward appearance. In her despair she fled to Africa, where, as she passed restlessly from place to place, infant snakes dropped from her hair, and thus, according to the belief of the ancients, that country became the hotbed of these venomous reptiles. With the curse of Athene upon her, she turned into stone whomsoever she gazed upon, till at last, after a life of nameless misery, deliverance came to her in the shape of death, at the hands of Perseus.

Some intelligent  European preadolescents were in our day and set, and I doubt if
much individual genius should be assigned to our interest in  the  plurality
of  inhabited worlds, competitive tennis, infinity, solipsism and so on. The
softness and fragility of baby animals caused us the same intense pain.  She
wanted  to  be  a  nurse  in some famished Asiatic country; I wanted to be a
famous spy.
     All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly  in  love
with  each  other;  hopelessly,  I should add, because that frenzy of mutual
possession might have been  assuaged  only  by  our  actually  imbibing  and
assimilating  every  particle  of  each other's soul and flesh; but there we
were, unable even to mate as slum children would have  so  easily  found  an
opportunity  to  do.  After one wild attempt we made to meet at night in her
garden (of which more later), the only privacy we were allowed was to be out
of earshot but not out of sight on the populous part  of  the  plage.
There,  on  the  soft sand, a few feet away from our elders, we would sprawl
all morning, in a petrified paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of  every
blessed  quirk  in space and time to touch each other: her hand, half-hidden
in the sand, would creep toward me, its slender brown  fingers  sleepwalking
nearer  and nearer; then, her opalescent knee would start on a long cautious
journey; sometimes a chance rampart built by  younger  children  granted  us
sufficient  concealment  to  graze each other's salty lips; these incomplete
contacts drove our healthy and inexperienced young bodies to such a state of
exasperation that not even the cold blue water, under which we still  clawed
at each other, could bring relief.
     Among  some  treasures  I lost during the wanderings of my adult years,
there was a snapshot taken by my aunt which showed Annabel, her parents  and
the  staid,  elderly,  lame  gentleman,  a  Dr. Cooper, who that same summer
courted my aunt, grouped around a table in a sidewalk cafe. Annabel did  not
come  out well, caught as she was in the act of bending over her chocolat
glacи, and her thin bare shoulders and the parting  in  her  hair  were
about  all  that  could  be identified (as I remember that picture) amid the
sunny blur into which her lost loveliness graded; but  I,  sitting  somewhat
apart  from  the  rest,  came out with a kind of dramatic conspicuousness: a
moody, beetle-browed boy in a  dark  sport  shirt  and  well-tailored  white
shorts,  his legs crossed, sitting in profile, looking away. That photograph
was taken on the last day of our fatal summer and just a few minutes  before
we  made our second and final attempt to thwart fate. Under the flimsiest of
pretexts (this was our very last chance, and  nothing  really  mattered)  we
escaped  from  the  cafe to the beach, and found a desolate stretch of sand,
and there, in the violet shadow of some red rocks forming a  kind  of  cave,
had  a  brief  session  of  avid  caresses,  with  somebody's  lost  pair of
sunglasses for only witness. I  was  on  my  knees,  and  on  the  point  of
possessing  my darling, when two bearded bathers, the old man of the sea and
his brother, came out of the sea with exclamations of ribald  encouragement,
and four months later she died of typhus in Corfu.

4
I  leaf  again  and  again  through  these miserable memories, and keep
asking myself, was it then, in the glitter of that remote summer,  that  the
rift  in  my  life began; or was my excessive desire for that child only the
first evidence of an inherent singularity? When I  try  to  analyze  my  own
cravings,  motives,  actions  and  so  forth,  I  surrender  to  a  sort  of
retrospective imagination which feeds the analytic  faculty  with  boundless
alternatives  and  which  causes  each  visualized route to fork and re-fork
without end in the maddeningly complex prospect of my past. I am  convinced,
however, that in a certain magic and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel.
     I  also  know  that  the  shock  of  Annabel's  death  consolidated the
frustration of that nightmare summer, made of it a permanent obstacle to any
further romance throughout the cold years of my youth. The spiritual and the
physical had  been  blended  in  us  with  a  perfection  that  must  remain
incomprehensible  to  the matter-of-fact, crude, standard-brained youngsters
of today. Long after her death I felt her thoughts  floating  through  mine.
Long  before  we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We found
strange affinities. The same June of the same year (1919) a stray canary had
fluttered into her house and mine, in two widely  separated  countries.  Oh,
Lolita, had you loved me thus!
     I have reserved for the conclusion of my "Annabel" phase the account of
our unsuccessful  first tryst. One night, she managed to deceive the vicious

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