Ben Hambrecht’s Reviews > The Guermantes Way > Status Update

Sometimes in this life, under the stress of an exceptional emotion, people do say what they think.

Humans, creatures obviously less rudimentary in structure than the urchin or even the whale, are nevertheless still unprovided with a certain number of essential organs, and notably possess none that will serve for kissing. The place of this absent organ they supply with their lips, and thereby arrive perhaps at a slightly more satisfying result than if they were reduced to caressing the beloved with a horny tusk.

Nothing much happens, in glorious detail.

"My gaze felt itself trapped in the spontaneous incandescence of the flashing eyes of the Princess, who had unconsciously set them ablaze merely by turning her head to see who it might be that her cousin was thus greeting, while the Duchess, who had remembered me, showered upon me the sparkling and celestial torrent of her smile."