In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7]

by Marcel Proust

I was meaning to go off with Cottard in a moment to the Verdurins’, when I definitely declined his offer, seized by an irresistible desire to stay with Albertine. The fact was, I had just heard her laugh. And her laugh at once suggested the rosy flesh, the fragrant portals between which it had just made its way, seeming also, as strong, sensual and revealing as the scent of geraniums, to carry with it some microscopic particles of their substance, irritant and secret.