Page 596 - swanns-way

visit to Balbec—blended in me the desire for gothic archi-
tecture with that for a storm upon the sea.
I should have liked to take, the very next day, the good,
the generous train at one twenty-two, of which never with-
out a palpitating heart could I read, in the railway company’s
bills or in advertisements of circular tours, the hour of de-
parture: it seemed to me to cut, at a precise point in every
afternoon, a most fascinating groove, a mysterious mark,
from which the diverted hours still led one on, of course,
towards evening, towards to-morrow morning, but to an
evening and morning which one would behold, not in Paris
but in one of those towns through which the train passed
and among which it allowed one to choose; for it stopped
at Bayeux, at Coutances, at Vitré, at Questambert, at Pon-
torson, at Balbec, at Lannion, at Lamballe, at Benodet, at
Pont-Aven, at Quimperle, and progressed magnificently
surcharged with names which it offered me, so that, among
them all, I did not know which to choose, so impossible was
it to sacrifice any. But even without waiting for the train
next day, I could, by rising and dressing myself with all
speed, leave Paris that very evening, should my parents per-
mit, and arrive at Balbec as dawn spread westward over the
raging sea, from whose driven foam I would seek shelter in
that church in the Persian manner. But at the approach of
the Easter holidays, when my parents bad promised to let
me spend them, for once, in the North of Italy, lo! in place of
those dreams of tempests, by which I had been entirely pos-
sessed, not wishing to see anything but waves dashing in
from all sides, mounting always higher, upon the wildest of

596 Swann’s Way