“They were about the same age, but thirty-five years might have been forty-five if Mamma’s face had been a place for measuring time, while Coletta’s might have been twenty-five. You saw four children in Mamma’s face, you even saw Hugo there; you saw centuries of worry, ages of toil, aeons of work and distress. There was no record of children upon the face of Coletta Drigo, nor of worry, nor of distress; instead you saw a rare nuance of youth to maturity; you saw excitement; you saw great cities, happy times, the whole wonderful world; and, above all, her beauty, black hair, black eyes, the dark whitish skin. You were sure that if she had a pet it wasn’t a dog but a cat, a Siamese cat.”
―
John Fante,
The Wine of Youth: Selected Stories