"Lovers walk around wearing each other's body, and they wear and radiate into the world their common physicality, which is in no way the mathematical sum of their two bodies but something more, something different, something barely definable, both a quantity and a quality, for the two bodies contract into one but cannot be reduced to one; this quantitative surplus and qualitative uniqueness cannot be defined in terms of, say, the bodies' mingled scents, which is only the most easily noticeable and superficial manifestation of the separate bodies' commonality that extends to all life functions; true, the common scent eats itself into their clothes, hair, and skin, and whoever comes into contact with the lovers will enter the sphere of this new physicality, and if the outsider has a sensitive and impartial enough nose not only will he come under the magic spell of the loversâput more simply, under their influenceânot only will he receive a part of their love, but it's also possible that once inside the lovers' private bubble and led by his own olfactory sensations he will become aware of meaningful borrowings, transferences, and displacements in the gestures, facial expressions, and intonations that are the peculiar physical manifestation of the lovers' emotional union."
PĂŠter NĂĄdas's *A Book of Memories*, translated by Ivan Sanders with Imre Goldstein. It's full of extraordinarily long sentences, and their consistent success in making the English work has kept blowing me away.