There were some that were of so rare a beauty that my pleasure on catching sight of them was enhanced by surprise. By what privilege, on one morning rather than another, did the window on being uncurtained disclose to my wondering eyes the nymph Glauconome, whose lazy beauty, gently breathing, had the transparence of a vaporous emerald beneath whose surface I could see teeming the ponderable elements that coloured it? She made the sun join in her play, with a smile rendered languorous by an invisible haze which was nought but a space kept vacant about her translucent surface, which, thus curtailed, became more appealing, like those goddesses whom the sculptor carves in relief upon a block of marble, the rest of which he leaves unchiselled. So, in her matchless colour, she invited us out over those rough terrestrial roads, from which, seated beside Mme. de Villeparisis in her barouche, we should see, all day long and without ever reaching it, the coolness of her gentle palpitation.
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About Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust was a 19th-century French novelist, literary critic, and essayist. Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist best known for his novel À la recherche du temps perdu, which was published in seven volumes between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century. Read more on Wikipedia →