Page 223 - swanns-way

procured it for me must have involved them in an immen-
sity of effort, and with no recompense, since for them there
was no pleasure in the sound. And so I would prudently
turn the conversation. And by a scruple of conscience, also.
All the singular seductions which I had stored up in the
sound of that word Swann, I found again as soon as it was
uttered. And then it occurred to me suddenly that my par-
ents could not fail to experience the same emotions, that
they must find themselves sharing my point of view, that
they perceived in their turn, that they condoned, that they
even embraced my visionary longings, and I was as wretch-
ed as though I had ravished and corrupted the innocence of
their hearts.
That year my family fixed the day of their return to Paris
rather earlier than usual. On the morning of our departure
I had had my hair curled, to be ready to face the photogra-
pher, had had a new hat carefully set upon my head, and had
been buttoned into a velvet jacket; a little later my mother,
after searching everywhere for me, found me standing in
tears on that steep little hillside close to Tansonville, bid-
ding a long farewell to my hawthorns, clasping their sharp
branches to my bosom, and (like a princess in a tragedy,
oppressed by the weight of all her senseless jewellery) with
no gratitude towards the officious hand which had, in curl-
ing those ringlets, been at pains to collect all my hair upon
my forehead; trampling underfoot the curl-papers which I
had torn from my head, and my new hat with them. My
mother was not at all moved by my tears, but she could not
suppress a cry at the sight of my battered headgear and my

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