Confessions of an Opium Eater1962

Gilbert De Quincey:
[narration] In that first instance of her image passing the lenses of my eyes, I felt that I was hanging in the immensity of space and she was floating with me - chained, locked inextricably together; arms, brains, heart pulsations, unable to flee, unable to break apart; sinking, sinking through the inexhaustible depths of time. I forgot the long journey by the sea. I forgot the pain. I forgot my mission. Was it the heavy, drifting perfume of the incense or some feverish fantasy searing my brain? Whatever it was, as I looked at her for a heartbeat I knew whoever she was, whatever she might be, this woman had to be a kind of fate for me.