Snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow...

"Perhaps, I thought, while her words still hung in the air between us like a wisp of tobacco smoke - a thought to fade and vanish like smoke without a trace - perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols; a hill of many invisible crests; doors that open as in a dream to reveal only a further stretch of carpet and another door; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us."
- Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

I'm not at all sure what to think of Waugh at the moment, but this passage stopped me short and I reread it several times. I'm still thinking about it, so I figured I'd post it here before I lost it... those bookmarks you leave behind halfway through the book always fall out, anyway.