QUOTE : But there was something else about Elisandra that was even more striking, and that was her air of absolute, unbreakable calm. Even when she spoke and gestured in the course of an ordinary conversation, a great stillness lay behind the animation of her features and the glances of her eyes. Even when she danced, she seemed to move as a figure in a frieze would, stately and frozen in place from panel to panel. There was no exuberance in her, no matter how she laughed or smiled. There was a great watchfulness that hung about her like a curtain of light or shadow, and filtered out any thoughts, any expressions, that she wanted no other to see.