【Paintings in Proust】 Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink：Mrs Frederick R. Leyland, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1871—73 (p.137)

「我們想去迎接一隻孔雀，可是找到的是一朵牡丹。」
不知為何，總覺得普魯斯特寫的這句話格外具有禪意，在戀愛之初，還無法完全掌握住自己的真心所在，一直到後來才恍然大悟，伊人就在那燈火闌珊處。
而這個伊人面容的特點在記憶中也才逐漸開始清晰…




【TEXT】
No doubt this astonishment is to some extent due to the fact that the other person on such occasions presents some new facet; but so great is the multiformity of each individual, so abundant the wealth of lines of face and body, so few of which leave any trace, once we are no longer in the presence of the other person, on the arbitrary simplicity of our recollection, since the memory had selected some distinctive feature that had struck us, has isolated it, exaggerated it, making of a woman Who has appeared to us tall a sketch in which her figure is elongated out of all proportion, or of a woman who has seemed to be pink-cheeked and golden-haired a pure ‘Harmony in Pink and Gold’, that the moment this woman is once again standing before us, all the other forgotten dualities which balance that one remembered feature at once assail us, in their confused complexity, diminishing her height, paling her checks, and substituting for what we came exclusively to seek other features which we remember having noticed the first time and fail to understand why we so little expected to find them again. We remembered, we anticipated a peacock, and we find a peony. (Within a Budding Grove)

顯然這種驚異的部份原因，是此人此時又向我們展示出他本人新的一面。每個人的多面性又是那樣龐大，面龐與身體的線條那樣豐富，很少現出同樣的線條。我們剛剛離開這個人的身邊，在我們回憶的絕對簡單化之中，正如同記憶選擇了給我們印象深刻的某一特點，將這個特點孤立起來，加以誇大一樣，我們覺得個子很高的一位女子，在草圖中就成了身高異乎尋常；我們似乎覺得金髮、皮膚白裡透紅的一位女子，在草圖中就成了純粹的《粉紅與金色之和諧》了。待到這位女子重新出現在我們身旁，所有構成她的平衡的被遺忘了的其他長處，以其紛亂的複雜性向我們襲來時，她的身高降低了，粉紅的面頰被淹沒了，我們專門前來找尋的東西被其他的特點代替了。這其他特點，回想起來，第一次時我們也曾注意到，只是不知為何竟沒有料到會再度看到這些。我們回憶一下，我們想去迎接一隻孔雀，可是找到的是一朵牡丹。
(p.533~534 追憶似水年華 II 在少女們身旁 聯經版 1992)