John Shade’s wife, née Irondell (which comes not from a little valley yielding iron ore but from the French for “swallow”). She was a few months his senior. I understand she came of Canadian stock, as did Shade’s maternal grandmother (a first cousin of Sybil’s grandfather, if I am not greatly mistaken).
From the very first I tried to behave with the utmost courtesy toward my friend’s wife, and from the very first she disliked and distrusted me. I was to learn later then when alluding to me in public she used to call me “an elephantine tick; a king-sized botfly; a macaco worm; the monstrous parasite of a genius.” I pardon her—and everybody.