Page 636 - swanns-way

public holiday, if there was one approaching, some anniver-
sary, the New Year, perhaps, one of those days which are not
like other days, on which time starts afresh, casting aside
the heritage of the past, declining its legacy of sorrows) I
would appeal to Gilberte to terminate our old and to join
me in laying the foundations of a new friendship.
*****
I had always, within reach, a plan of Paris, which, be-
cause I could see drawn on it the street in which M. and
Mme. Swann lived, seemed to me to contain a secret trea-
sure. And to please myself, as well as by a sort of chivalrous
loyalty, in any connection or with no relevance at all, I
would repeat the name of that street until my father, not be-
ing, like my mother and grandmother, in the secret of my
love, would ask: ‘But why are you always talking about that
street? There’s nothing wonderful about it. It is an admi-
rable street to live in because it’s only a few minutes’ walk
from the Bois, but there are a dozen other streets just the
same.’
I made every effort to introduce the name of Swann
into my conversation with my parents; in my own mind,
of course, I never ceased to murmur it; but I needed also
to hear its exquisite sound, and to make myself play that
chord, the voiceless rendering of which did not suffice me.
Moreover, that name of Swann, with which I had for so long
been familiar, was to me now (as happens at times to peo-
ple suffering from aphasia, in the case of the most ordinary
words) the name of something new. It was for ever present
in my mind, which could not, however, grow accustomed to

636 Swann’s Way