My Year With Proust - Day 280

   "But they're growing in a pot, they aren't cut flowers," said the Princess.

   "No," answered the Duchess with a smile, "but it comes to the same thing, as they're all ladies.  It's a kind of plant where the ladies and gentlemen don't grow on the same stalk.  I'm like the people who keep a lady dog.  I have to find a husband for my flowers.  Otherwise I shan't have any young ones!"

   "How very strange.  Do you mean to say that in nature . . .?"

   "Yes, there are certain insects whose duty it is to bring about the marriage, as with sovereigns, by proxy, without the bridge and bridegroom ever having set eyes on one another.  And so, I assure you, I always tell my man to put my plant at the open window as often as possible, on the courtyard side and the garden side turn about, in the hope that the necessary insect will arrive.  But the odds are so enormous!  Just think, he would have to have just been to see a person of the same species and the opposite sex, and he must then have taken it into his head to come and leave cards at the house.  He hasn't appeared so far - I believe my plant can still qualify for the white flowers of maidenhood, but I must say a little more shamelessness would please me better.  It's just the same with that fine tree we have in the courtyard - it will die childless because it belongs to a species that's very rare in these latitudes.  In its case, it's the wind that's responsible for bring about the union, but the wall is a trifle high."

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 535-536

It's hard to imagine many conversations that are more sexually or emotionally charged, but which seemingly have nothing to do with love or sex than this exchange.  That said, I did immediately reflect on the brilliant Alexander Payne movie Sideways, where Miles, the character played by Paul Giamatti, talks about grapes and fragility and nurturing, and then the brilliant philosophical answer about life from Maya, played by Virginia Madsen.