Page 357 - swanns-way

a woman glided up to Swann, murmured a few words in
his ear, asked him to take her home, and left him shudder-
ing. Anxiously he explored every one of these vaguely seen
shapes, as though among the phantoms of the dead, in the
realms of darkness, he had been searching for a lost Eury-
dice.
Among all the methods by which love is brought into
being, among all the agents which disseminate that blessed
bane, there are few so efficacious as the great gust of agita-
tion which, now and then, sweeps over the human spirit.
For then the creature in whose company we are seeking
amusement at the moment, her lot is cast, her fate and ours
decided, that is the creature whom we shall henceforward
love. It is not necessary that she should have pleased us, up
till then, any more, or even as much as others. All that is
necessary is that our taste for her should become exclusive.
And that condition is fulfilled so soon as—in the moment
when she has failed to meet us—for the pleasure which we
were on the point of enjoying in her charming company
is abruptly substituted an anxious torturing desire, whose
object is the creature herself, an irrational, absurd desire,
which the laws of civilised society make it impossible to sat-
isfy and difficult to assuage—the insensate, agonising desire
to possess her.
Swann made Rémi drive him to such restaurants as were
still open; it was the sole hypothesis, now, of that happiness
which he had contemplated so calmly; he no longer con-
cealed his agitation, the price he set upon their meeting,
and promised, in case of success, to reward his coachman,

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