Page 537 - swanns-way

than to see him and to let him take her home) belonged in-
deed to a mysterious world to which one never may return
again once its doors are closed. And Swann could distin-
guish, standing, motionless, before that scene of happiness
in which it lived again, a wretched figure which filled him
with such pity, because he did not at first recognise who it
was, that he must lower his head, lest anyone should observe
that his eyes were filled with tears. It was himself.
When he had realised this, his pity ceased; he was jeal-
ous, now, of that other self whom she had loved, he was
jealous of those men of whom he had so often said, with-
out much suffering: ‘Perhaps she’s in love with them,’ now
that he had exchanged the vague idea of loving, in which
there is no love, for the petals of the chrysanthemum and
the ‘letter-heading’ of the Maison d’Or; for they were full of
love. And then, his anguish becoming too keen, he passed
his hand over his forehead, let the monocle drop from his
eye, and wiped its glass. And doubtless, if he had caught
sight of himself at that moment, he would have added to the
collection of the monocles which he had already identified,
this one which he removed, like an importunate, worrying
thought, from his head, while from its misty surface, with
his handkerchief, he sought to obliterate his cares.
There are in the music of the violin—if one does not see
the instrument itself, and so cannot relate what one hears to
its form, which modifies the fullness of the sound—accents
which are so closely akin to those of certain contralto voic-
es, that one has the illusion that a singer has taken her place
amid the orchestra. One raises one’s eyes; one sees only the

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