Page 361 - swanns-way

of breaking from her face and rolling down her cheeks like
two great tears. She bent her neck, as all their necks may
be seen to bend, in the pagan scenes as well as in the scrip-
tural. And although her attitude was, doubtless, habitual
and instinctive, one which she knew to be appropriate to
such moments, and was careful not to forget to assume, she
seemed to need all her strength to hold her face back, as
though some invisible force were drawing it down towards
Swann’s. And Swann it was who, before she allowed her
face, as though despite her efforts, to fall upon his lips, held
it back for a moment longer, at a little distance between his
hands. He had intended to leave time for her mind to over-
take her body’s movements, to recognise the dream which
she had so long cherished and to assist at its realisation, like
a mother invited as a spectator when a prize is given to the
child whom she has reared and loves. Perhaps, moreover,
Swann himself was fixing upon these features of an Odette
not yet possessed, not even kissed by him, on whom he was
looking now for the last time, that comprehensive gaze with
which, on the day of his departure, a traveller strives to bear
away with him in memory the view of a country to which
he may never return.
But he was so shy in approaching her that, after this eve-
ning which had begun by his arranging her cattleyas and
had ended in her complete surrender, whether from fear
of chilling her, or from reluctance to appear, even retro-
spectively, to have lied, or perhaps because he lacked the
audacity to formulate a more urgent requirement than this
(which could always be repeated, since it had not annoyed

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