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notes Woolf’s Orlando tr. de J. L. Borges
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Orlando
by
Virginia Woolf
Chapter 1
HE — FOR THERE COULD BE NO
DOUBT of his sex, though the fashion of
the time did something to disguise it — was
in the act of slicing at the...
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1
notes Woolf’s Orlando tr. de J. L. Borges
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
Orlando
by
Virginia Woolf
Chapter 1
HE — FOR THERE COULD BE NO
DOUBT of his sex, though the fashion of
the time did something to disguise it — was
in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor
which swung from the rafters.
I t w a s t h e c o l o u r o f a n o l d
football, and more or less the shape
of one, save for the sunken cheeks and
a strand or two of coarse, dry hair,
like the hair on a cocoanut.
Orlando’s father, or perhaps his
grandfather, had struck it from the shoulders
of a vast Pagan who had started up under
the moon in the barbarian fields of Africa;
and now it swung, gently, perpetually, in the
breeze which never ceased blowing through
the attic rooms of the gigantic house of the
lord who had slain him.
Orlando’s fathers had ridden in fields of
asphodel, and stony fields, and fields
watered by strange rivers, and they had
struck many heads of many colours off
many shoulders, and brought them bac
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