January 29

Inward goes the mysterious path. Within us or nowhere is eternity with its worlds, the past and the future.

Novalis Pollen

The Second Sip

Inward goes the mysterious path. Within us or nowhere is eternity with its worlds, the past and the future.

Novalis

One winter's day the narrator's mother offered him tea. At first he declined, then took some after all and dipped a piece of madeleine into it. With the first spoonful a joy ran through him whose cause he did not know.

He drank again. The second sip brought nothing new, the third less than the second. He set down the cup and tried to discover what had surfaced in him. Several times the trail was lost again.

Then he recognised the taste. On Sundays in Combray his aunt Léonie had given him a piece of cake that she had first dipped in her tea. Now the house was back too, the streets, the gardens, the paths of his childhood. Before he tasted it, the sight of the cake had brought none of this back to him.

Anna Atkins, Gigartina confervoides, cyanotype
Gigartina confervoides · Anna Atkins, cyanotype, 1843–53 · from Photographs of British Algae More about Anna Atkins ›
Anna Atkins, Gigartina confervoides, cyanotype

Gigartina confervoides · Anna Atkins, cyanotype, 1843–53 · from Photographs of British Algae