Page 210 - swanns-way

parents but, even in his most artificial creations, nature is
the material upon which man has to work; certain spots
will persist in remaining surrounded by the vassals of their
own especial sovereignty, and will raise their immemorial
standards among all the ‘laid-out’ scenery of a park, just as
they would have done far from any human interference, in
a solitude which must everywhere return to engulf them,
springing up out of the necessities of their exposed position,
and superimposing itself upon the work of man’s hands.
And so it was that, at the foot of the path which led down to
this artificial lake, there might be seen, in its two tiers woven
of trailing forget-me-nots below and of periwinkle flowers
above, the natural, delicate, blue garland which binds the
luminous, shadowed brows of water-nymphs; while the iris,
its swords sweeping every way in regal profusion, stretched
out over agrimony and water-growing king-cups the lilied
sceptres, tattered glories of yellow and purple, of the king-
dom of the lake.
The absence of Mlle. Swann, which—since it preserved
me from the terrible risk of seeing her appear on one of the
paths, and of being identified and scorned by this so privi-
leged little girl who had Bergotte for a friend and used to go
with him to visit cathedrals—made the exploration of Tan-
sonville, now for the first time permitted me, a matter of
indifference to myself, seemed however to invest the prop-
erty, in my grandfather’s and father’s eyes, with a fresh and
transient charm, and (like an entirely cloudless sky when
one is going mountaineering) to make the day extraordi-
narily propitious for a walk in this direction; I should have

210 Swann’s Way