Page 538 - swanns-way

wooden case, magical as a Chinese box; but, at moments,
one is still tricked by the deceiving appeal of the Siren; at
times, too, one believes that one is listening to a captive
spirit, struggling in the darkness of its masterful box, a
box quivering with enchantment, like a devil immersed in
a stoup of holy water; sometimes, again, it is in the air, at
large, like a pure and supernatural creature that reveals to
the ear, as it passes, its invisible message.
As though the musicians were not nearly so much playing
the little phrase as performing the rites on which it insist-
ed before it would consent to appear, as proceeding to utter
the incantations necessary to procure, and to prolong for
a few moments, the miracle of its apparition, Swann, who
was no more able now to see it than if it had belonged to a
world of ultra-violet light, who experienced something like
the refreshing sense of a metamorphosis in the momentary
blindness with which he had been struck as he approached
it, Swann felt that it was present, like a protective goddess,
a confidant of his love, who, so as to be able to come to him
through the crowd, and to draw him aside to speak to him,
had disguised herself in this sweeping cloak of sound. And
as she passed him, light, soothing, as softly murmured as
the perfume of a flower, telling him what she had to say,
every word of which he closely scanned, sorry to see them
fly away so fast, he made involuntarily with his lips the mo-
tion of kissing, as it went by him, the harmonious, fleeting
form.
He felt that he was no longer in exile and alone since she,
who addressed herself to him, spoke to him in a whisper of

538 Swann’s Way