More "Mrs. Dalloway"

Yes, I'm obsessing a little bit, but hey - humor me!

As I've discussed here before, this is not an "easy read" for me, but today I came across what I thought was a phenomenally powerful passage describing what I can only interpret as an orgasm. Here it is:


"Only for a moment; but it was enough. It was a sudden revelation, a tinge like a blush which one tried to check and then, as it spread, one yielded to its expansion, and rushed to the farthest verge and there quivered and felt the world come closer, swollen with some astonishing significance, some pressure of rapture, which split the skin and gushed and poured with an extraordinary alleviation over cracks and sores! Then for that moment, she had seen an illumination; a match burning in a crocus; an inner meaning almost expressed. But the close withdrew; the hard softened. It was over - the moment."

I think I need a cigarette, and I don't even smoke!