In Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, on page 38 Felix begins to describe Robin when he sees her unconscious, I believe. It states, “Her flesh was the texture of plant life, and beneath it one sensed a frame, broad, porous and sleep-worn, as if sleep were a decay fishing her beneath the visible surface. About her head there was an effulgence as of phosphorus glowing about the circumference of a body of water…” When I had read this for the first time, I had no idea what he meant by the words “effulgence” or “porous”. I had started thinking why he was comparing sleep to decay fishing? What does the circumference of a body of water really mean in this passage? Is the circumference related to what we have been learning in class for the past week? To make some sort of understanding of what is going on and we he really means (to me), I had annotated, defined while looking at the context of the passage. He compares her flesh to plant life, which I think means delicate and fragile but underneath the exterior, there is some sort of strong structure. As for the comparison of sleep and decay fishing, I believe he means the state she was in? As if there was some sort of decline in her state in her sleep. Or maybe there is a deeper meaning about her state, that she is rotting inside? He then describes her head as if it was radiant, as “of phosphorus glowing” which I thought indicated her hair color and how it was shining. When we see a body of water, it is usually shiny when the sun is reflected off of it. This is how I had gone about making sense of the passage.