To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I read this beautiful novel when I was too young. At thirteen, I read for conquest more than comprehension - there was no way that I could understand the pathos of the rejected Florentino Ariza the way I did at twenty-eight, when I revisited those pages in my London flat while weeping over my own romantic dramas. Even so, this excerpt from Love in the Time of Cholera reminds me of being very young and wistful, wondering if one day I would ever become the object of such perfect adoration.
Quotation via Everything's Just Rosie. Photograph via Bohemia.
