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I'm working on The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai. First, protagonist describes the way her mother drinks soup, that is very gently. Then she says this:
ヒラリ、という形容は、お母さまの場合、決して誇張では無い。婦人雑誌などに出ているお食事のいただき方などとは、てんでまるで、違っていらっしゃる。
I generally understand the meaning, but I am confused about ヒラリ. Is it the same "hirari" with ひらり? What does she mean?
ひらり(と)/ヒラリ(と) is a mimetic word that means "elegantly yet swiftly (and without a sound)". It's written both in hiragana and katakana. A good example of ひらり is a boxer's dodging action (相手のパンチをひらりとかわしてカウンターパンチを入れた). Here it describes the elegance of the movement of the お母様, who is a "natural-born noble".
The text goes like this:
お母さまは、何事も無かったように、またひらりと一さじ、スウプをお口に流し込み、すましてお顔を横に向け、お勝手の窓の、満開の山桜に視線を送り、そうしてお顔を横に向けたまま、またひらりと一さじ、スウプを小さなお唇のあいだに滑り込ませた。ヒラリ、という形容は、お母さまの場合、決して誇張では無い。婦人雑誌などに出ているお食事のいただき方などとは、てんでまるで、違っていらっしゃる。
As I said, mimetic words like ヒラリ can be safely written in katakana without a reason, but here the author suddenly changed ひらり to katakana. If this was intentional, katakana was used for mild emphasis, like 傍点 or English italics (i.e., "Hirari is not an exaggeration").
