Death of a Traveling Salesman — Vocabulary
Eudora Welty
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He made a grave answer.2 more

Then he saw that he was on the edge of a ravine that fell away, a red erosion, and that this was indeed the road's end.†2 more

And he himself-he was a man who always wore rather wide-brimmed black hats, and in the wavy hotel mirrors had looked something like a bullfighter, as he paused for that inevitable instant on the landing, walking downstairs to supper.... He leaned out of the car again, and once more the sun pushed at his head.†

Somehow he felt unable to be indignant or protest, although some sort of joke had certainly been played upon him.†

...In a flare of touchiness and anxiety, Bowman wished to avoid even mention of unknown men and their unknown farms.†

But instead of getting up, he listened.... His breathing restrained, his eyes powerless in the growing dark, he listened uneasily for a warning sound, forgetting in wariness what it would be.†

It began to pound profoundly,

He drove through a heap of dead oak leaves, his wheels stirring their weightless sides to make a silvery melancholy whistle as the car passed through their bed.†

Bowman averted his head and saw the woman looking serenely back at the mule, with only satisfaction in her face.†

Before long he heard something-soft, continuous, insinuating.†

I'll sleep in the dark, he thought, in his bewilderment pitying himself.†

It shot up with great power, almost elation, and fell gently, like acrobats into nets.†

Mischievously, at the suggestion of those sounds, Bowman's heart leapt again.†

He felt strangely helpless and resentful.†

When she never said a word, and sustained her quiet pose of holding the lamp, he was convinced of the strength in her body.

On some impulse he put all the money from his billfold under its fluted glass base, almost ostentatiously.†

What prompted her to stay there across the room, silently bestowing her presence upon him?†

Stock-still in his confusion, he dropped his bags, which seemed to drift in slow bulks gracefully through the air and to cushion themselves on the gray prostrate grass near the doorstep.†

It began to pound profoundly, then waited irresponsibly, hitting in some sort of inward mockery first at his ribs, then against his eyes, then under his shoulder blades, and against the roof of his mouth when he tried to say, "Good afternoon, madam."†

He stared at the woman while the frantic nimbleness of his feeling made his head sway.†