【Paintings in Proust】 A ‘Star of bethlehem’ and Other Plants, Leonardo da Vinci, 1505 (p.89)

敘事者與希爾貝特的情愫總是帶有初戀的驚喜與甜蜜，不像後來與阿爾貝蒂娜的感情經歷，則是充滿猜疑與傷痛。
我相信在戀愛的當下，戀人的照片一定遠比任何名畫來得珍貴，話說普魯斯特本人在現實生活中，確實也有收藏照片的癖好呢！




【TEXT】
At such moments Gilberte’s plaits used to brush my cheek. They seemed to me, in the fineness of their grain, at once natural and supernatural, and in the strength of their skilfully woven tracery, a matchless work of art in the composition of which had been used the very grass of Paradise. To a section of them, however infinitesimal, what celestial herbarium would I not have given as a reliquary? But since I never hoped to obtain an actual fragment of those plaits, if at least 1 had been able to have a photograph of them, how far more precious than one of a sheet of flowers drawn by Leonardo! (Within a Budding Grove)

在這種時刻，希爾貝特的髮辮碰著我的臉頰。這些十分纖細（既自然又超自然）的、富有藝術性曲線的髮絲，在我看來，簡直是舉世無雙的、用天堂的青草做成的作品。最小一段髮辮都值得我當天國之草供奉起來。但是我不敢有此奢望，我只想得到一張照片，它會比達·芬奇所畫的小花的複製照片珍貴百倍！
(p.74 追憶似水年華 II 在少女們身旁 聯經版 1992)