My Year With Proust - Day 57

   "' . . . But don't you see, I really had to fasten the flowers; they would have fallen out if I hadn't.  Like that, now; if I just push them a little farther down . . . Seriously, I'm not annoying you, am I? And if I just sniff them to see whether they've really lost all their scent?  I don't believe I ever smelt any before; may I? Tell the truth, now.'

   Still smiling, she shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly, as who should say, 'You're quite mad; you know very well that I like it.'

   He slipped his other hand upwards along Odette's cheek; she fixed her eyes on him with that languishing and solemn air which marks the women of the old Florentine's paintings, in whose faces he had found the type of hers; swimming at the brink of her fringed lids, her brilliant eyes, large and finely drawn as theirs, seemed on the verge of breaking from her face and rolling down her cheeks like two great tears.  She bent her neck, as all their necks may be seen to bend, in the pagan scenes as well as in the scriptural.  And although her attitude was, doubtless, habitual and instinctive, one which she knew to be appropriate to such moments, and was careful not to forget to assume, she seemed to need all her strength to hold her face back, as though some invisible force was drawing it down towards Swann's.  And Swann it was who, before she allowed her face, as though despite her efforts, to fall upon his lips, held it back for a moment longer, at a little distance, between his hands.  He had intended to leave time for her mind to overtake her body's movements, to recognize the dream which she had so long cherished and to assist at its realization, like a mother invited as a spectator when a prize is given to the child whom she has reared and loves.  Perhaps, moreover, Swann himself was fixing upon these features of an Odette not yet possessed, not even kissed by him, on whom he was looking now for the last time, that comprehensive gaze with which, on the day of his departure, a traveller strives to bear away with him in memory the view of a country to which he may never return."

Marcel Proust, Swann's Way, pp. 246-247

This is part of a delicious passage describing the first time that Swann made love to Odette, an evening that, as we'll see next, began with him "arranging her cattleyas and had ended in her complete surrender." I'm breaking it up because I think it works better that way thematically, and both sections deserve the attention - and because it is appropriately consistent with the anticipation at the heart of this section.  Obviously there are so many moments in a relationship that will etch themselves into your memory, even, sadly, the ones that mark the end of the affair, but is there anything more wonderful and exhilarating and, yes, memorable, than that anticipatory moment before the first kiss?  There is almost a shared understanding from both parties that you pause, lingering, inches away, before that first kiss, although I'm not really certain whether we're genetically hard-wired to pause or whether we've learned it from popular culture (more fodder for the nature vs. nurture argument). Certainly once you're even a little experienced you know that the anticipation of that instant is always better than the reality of the moments that follow (although the moments that follow are also pretty damn sweet). It seems that we've been talking a lot about liminal spaces, as Proust wrote, "it was in vain that I lingered before the hawthorns."  Maybe the other reason we linger is because once we cross that boundary the world changes and we can never go back.  "Perhaps, moreover, Swann himself was fixing upon these features of an Odette not yet possessed, not even kissed by him, on whom he was looking now for the last time, that comprehensive gaze with which, on the day of his departure, a traveller strives to bear away with him in memory the view of a country to which he may never return." That person you hungered for has ceased to exist, as have you.  Now, their replacements may be wonderful, but they are also different people living in a different country.