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shall go for a drive as far as the gate of the park.’ And in say-
ing this she was quite sincere. She would have liked to see
Swann and Tansonville again; but the mere wish to do so
sufficed for all that remained of her strength, which its ful-
filment would have more than exhausted. Sometimes a spell
of fine weather made her a little more energetic, she would
rise and put on her clothes; but before she had reached the
outer room she would be ‘tired’ again, and would insist on
returning to her bed. The process which had begun in her—
and in her a little earlier only than it must come to all of
us—was the great and general renunciation which old age
makes in preparation for death, the chrysalis stage of life,
which may be observed wherever life has been unduly pro-
longed; even in old lovers who have lived for one another
with the utmost intensity of passion, and in old friends
bound by the closest ties of mental sympathy, who, after a
certain year, cease to make, the necessary journey, or even
to cross the street to see one another, cease to correspond,
and know well that they will communicate no more in this
world. My aunt must have been perfectly well aware that she
would not see Swann again, that she would never leave her
own house any more, but this ultimate seclusion seemed to
be accepted by her with all the more readiness for the very
reason which, to our minds, ought to have made it more un-
bearable; namely, that such a seclusion was forced upon her
by the gradual and steady diminution in her strength which
she was able to measure daily, which, by making every ac-
tion, every movement ‘tiring’ to her if not actually painful,
gave to inaction, isolation and silence the blessed, strength-
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