[…] she impatiently brushed them away, her eyes alight with the joy of living, her cheeks pink, her whole body taking on a sense of direction, a firmness of movement, as if it had been woken out of years of a somnivolent state.

The cutlery was chinging as the boat swayed around on the sea.

a burpy sound

let me now answer your facetious Letter (of 10 August) with a joculatory line or two