Sunday, November 17, 2019

Yes, but the order of the imagination is not that of memory.

From Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell. Part of the Alexandria Quartet.
(`Reliques of sensation' says Coleridge 'may exist for an indefinite time in a latent state in the very same order in which they were impressed.') Yes, but the order of the imagination is not that of memory. A faint wind blew off the sea from the Grecian archipelago. The sea was smooth as a human cheek. Only at the edges it stirred and sighed. Those warm kisses remain there, amputated from before and after, existing in their own right like the frail transparencies of ferns or roses pressed between the covers of old books — unique and unfading as the memories of the city they exemplified and evoked: a plume of music from a forgotten carnival-guitar echoing on in the dark streets of Alexandria for as long as silence lasts....

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