Tarlatan: The Word of the Day
Tarlatan
A thin, stiffly starched muslin in open plain weave. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tarlatan A very thin muslin, so open in texture as to be transparent, and often rather coarse in quality. It is used for women's evening dress, for widows' caps, etc. http://www.wordnik.com/words/tarlatan image from http://www.takachpress.com/servlet/the-405/Etching-Wiping-Tarlatin-regular/Detail
In the desk he found a notebook, spreading boards, supplies of black pins, and an English biscuit tin that contained a large exotic cocoon which had cost three rubles. It was papery to the touch and seemed made of a brown folded leaf. His son had remembered it during his sickness, regretting that he had left it behind, but consoling himself with the thought that the chrysalid inside was probably dead. He also found a torn net: a tarlatan bag on a collapsible hoop (and the muslin still smelled of summer and sun-hot grass). Nabokov, Vladimir. "Christmas." The Complete Short Stories. New York: Vintage,1997. Page 134.
Sooperphli's WORD OF THE DAY: Vocabulary from Vladimir Nabokov's short stories #413 | Series XVIII "Christmas" Revisited (#5)