“Floss, Floss, Floss!”

From a deeply Proustian story. The narrator was ten. Colette was ten.

Vladimir Nabokov, “First Love.” In The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov (1997).

Nabokov’s note on this story: “‘First Love’ is from Nabokov’s Dozen, 1958.”

Related reading
All OCA Nabokov posts (Pinboard)

[Penholder: “a holder or handle for a pen point,” i.e., the body of a dip pen.]