«The woman in the restaurant - pretty, decadent, with dog and husband (or affair) - turns to me and smiles that complicated Belgian smile, an affair-inviting smile. No: an 'in another life we could have been an item - couldn't we? - but we are trapped where we are' type of smile - offering less but evoking so much more. So complex, so indirect, so sublimated, we Northern Europeans. Then she reaches down into her sweater to adjust her bra strap - as if to say, 'Oh, these great big breasts - what a problem.' (In fact her breasts are not really so large - but the allusion is to her femininity and the fact that there are actually breasts down there.) She glances back at me - conspiratorially wistful - to make sure I noticed? - and does another smile, differently complex but equally susceptible to a full University of Brussels thesis.» *
* A Year With Swollen Appendices - Brian Eno's Diary
