Magic Words from Lawrence Durrell

Durrell, MOUNTOLIVE

They played with each other counterfeiting a desultory passion which mocked its own origins, could neither ignite nor extinguish itself. (You can lie apart, legs apart for numberless eternities, telling yourself it is something you have forgotten, it is on the tip of your tongue, the edge of your mind. For the life of you you cannot remember what it is, the name, the town, the day, the hour. . . the biological memory fails.

Sometimes a writer is so good that his words stop your heart. Durrell is one of these and all of the books in the Alexandrian Quartet resound with his talent.