Page 626 - swanns-way

Mademoiselle having taken advantage of the fine weather to
go on some errand of her own; and M. Swann was coming
to fetch his daughter. And so it was my fault; I ought not to
have strayed from the lawn; for one never knew for certain
from what direction Gilberte would appear, whether she
would be early or late, and this perpetual tension succeeded
in making more impressive not only the Champs-Elysées
in their entirety, and the whole span of the afternoon, like a
vast expanse of space and time, on every point and at every
moment of which it was possible that the form of Gilberte
might appear, but also that form itself, since behind its ap-
pearance I felt that there lay concealed the reason for which
it had shot its arrow into my heart at four o’clock instead of
at half-past two; crowned with a smart hat, for paying calls,
instead of the plain cap, for games; in front of the Ambassa-
deurs and not between the two puppet-shows; I divined one
of those occupations in which I might not follow Gilberte,
occupations that forced her to go out or to stay at home, I
was in contact with the mystery of her unknown life. It was
this mystery, too, which troubled me when, running at the
sharp-voiced girl’s bidding, so as to begin our game with-
out more delay, I saw Gilberte, so quick and informal with
us, make a ceremonious bow to the old lady with the Débats
(who acknowledged it with ‘What a lovely sun! You’d think
there was a fire burning.’) speaking to her with a shy smile,
with an air of constraint which called to my mind the other
little girl that Gilberte must be when at home with her par-
ents, or with friends of her parents, paying visits, in all the
rest, that escaped me, of her existence. But of that existence

626 Swann’s Way