Were it not for habit, life would seem delightful to beings constantly under threat of dying, in other words to all humankind. - Marcel Proust

Our shadows, now parallel, now close together and joined, traced an exquisite pattern at our feet.

The air of those rooms was saturated with the fine bouquet of a silence so nourishing, so succulent, that I never went into them without a sort of greedy anticipation, particularly on those first mornings, chilly still, of the Easter holidays, when I could taste it more fully because I had only just arrived in Combray[...]

My aching heart was soothed; I let myself be borne upon the current of this gentle night ...