He had found his way to sphinxlike imperturbability. - Patrick Süskind

A guard was like a sphinx. He functioned not by some deed, but rather by his mere bodily presence.

What had civilized man lost that he was looking for out there in jungles inhabited by Indians or Negroes?

She was one of those languid women made of dark honey, smooth and sweet and terribly sticky, who take control of a room with a syrupy gesture, a toss of the hair, a single slow whiplash of the eyes—and all the while remain as still as the center of a hurricane, apparently unaware of the force of gravity by which they irresistibly attract to themselves the yearnings and the souls of both men and women.