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- Feb 13, 2022
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I encountered the expression "with a handshake after she’d walked me to the bus stop", but am struggling to understand it. Could you please let me know what it means? Here is the excerpt:
All day I’d been doing just that. Looking for one store that was open on Christmas Day and finding all of them closed, lunching with Olaf, who badmouthed his wife in one unending screed, in the packed greasy spoon because everything else was closed, trying to shop for Christmas presents on Christmas Day, the whole day punctuated by hazy premonitions that last night might happen all over again. I had spent the entire day totally spellbound by our parting in the snow, wearing, but not wearing, my coat, saying goodbye with a handshake after she’d walked me to the bus stop and rushed back to her building, handing the doorman the umbrella she had borrowed, not turning, but then turning back at the last moment, every last part of me clinging to the memory of her elbow resting on my shoulder at the party, her burgundy suede shoes kicking off the snow, the cigarette, the ex-boyfriend, the Bloody Mary she had scarcely touched and later abandoned on the balcony while I’d stared at her open blouse, wondering all night why in someone so tanned was the base of her breasts so fair. I’ve been thinking of you all day, all day.
- André Aciman, Eight White Nights, Second Night
This is a novel published in the United States of America in 2010. This novel is narrated by the nameless male protagonist. The protagonist meets Clara at a Christmas party in Manhattan. Now, the protagonist is thinking about Clara.
I am struggling to understand this part, because, in my opinion, she must shake hands with the protagonist first before she went back to her building.
But, as far as I understand, the sentence seems to say that she shook hands with the protagonist after she went back to her building, so I am confused.
All day I’d been doing just that. Looking for one store that was open on Christmas Day and finding all of them closed, lunching with Olaf, who badmouthed his wife in one unending screed, in the packed greasy spoon because everything else was closed, trying to shop for Christmas presents on Christmas Day, the whole day punctuated by hazy premonitions that last night might happen all over again. I had spent the entire day totally spellbound by our parting in the snow, wearing, but not wearing, my coat, saying goodbye with a handshake after she’d walked me to the bus stop and rushed back to her building, handing the doorman the umbrella she had borrowed, not turning, but then turning back at the last moment, every last part of me clinging to the memory of her elbow resting on my shoulder at the party, her burgundy suede shoes kicking off the snow, the cigarette, the ex-boyfriend, the Bloody Mary she had scarcely touched and later abandoned on the balcony while I’d stared at her open blouse, wondering all night why in someone so tanned was the base of her breasts so fair. I’ve been thinking of you all day, all day.
- André Aciman, Eight White Nights, Second Night
This is a novel published in the United States of America in 2010. This novel is narrated by the nameless male protagonist. The protagonist meets Clara at a Christmas party in Manhattan. Now, the protagonist is thinking about Clara.
I am struggling to understand this part, because, in my opinion, she must shake hands with the protagonist first before she went back to her building.
But, as far as I understand, the sentence seems to say that she shook hands with the protagonist after she went back to her building, so I am confused.