Page 370 - swanns-way

the termination of this strange series of hours in his life,
hours almost enchanted, in the same manner as these other,
following hours, in which he drove through a deserted Par-
is by the light of the moon: noticing as he drove home that
the satellite had now changed its position, relatively to his
own, and was almost touching the horizon; feeling that his
love, also, was obedient to these immutable laws of nature,
he asked himself whether this period, upon which he had
entered, was to last much longer, whether presently his
mind’s eye would cease to behold that dear countenance,
save as occupying a distant and diminished position, and
on the verge of ceasing to shed on him the radiance of its
charm. For Swann was finding in things once more, since
he had fallen in love, the charm that he had found when, in
his adolescence, he had fancied himself an artist; with this
difference, that what charm lay in them now was conferred
by Odette alone. He could feel reawakening in himself the
inspirations of his boyhood, which had been dissipated
among the frivolities of his later life, but they all bore, now,
the reflection, the stamp of a particular being; and during
the long hours which he now found a subtle pleasure in
spending at home, alone with his convalescent spirit, he be-
came gradually himself again, but himself in thraldom to
another.
He went to her only in the evenings, and knew nothing
of how she spent her time during the day, any more than
he knew of her past; so little, indeed, that he had not even
the tiny, initial clue which, by allowing us to imagine what
we do not know, stimulates a desire foreknowledge. And so

370 Swann’s Way