Page 619 - swanns-way

ways I should thus have been declining to follow.
But when I arrived at the Champs-Elysées,—and, as at
first sight it appeared, was in a position to confront my love,
so as to make it undergo the necessary modifications, with
its living and independent cause—as soon as I was in the
presence of that Gilberte Swann on the sight of whom I had
counted to revive the images that my tired memory had lost
and could not find again, of that Gilberte Swann with whom
I had been playing the day before, and whom I had just been
prompted to greet, and then to recognise, by a blind instinct
like that which, when we are walking, sets one foot before
the other, without giving us time to think what we are do-
ing, then at once it became as though she and the little girl
who had inspired my dreams had been two different peo-
ple. If, for instance, I had retained in my memory overnight
two fiery eyes above plump and rosy cheeks, Gilberte’s face
would now offer me (and with emphasis) something that I
distinctly had not remembered, a certain sharpening and
prolongation of the nose which, instantaneously associat-
ing itself with certain others of her features, assumed the
importance of those characteristics which, in natural his-
tory, are used to define a species, and transformed her into
a little girl of the kind that have sharpened profiles. While
I was making myself ready to take advantage of this long
expected moment, and to surrender myself to the impres-
sion of Gilberte which I had prepared beforehand but could
no longer find in my head, to an extent which would enable
me, during the long hours which I must spend alone, to be
certain that it was indeed herself whom I had in mind, that

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