, some apparition of the life of the gods; casting,
finally, on that ragged grass, at the spot on which she stood (at once a
scrap of withered lawn and a moment in the afternoon of the fair player,
who continued to beat up and catch her shuttlecock until a governess,
with a blue feather in her hat, had called her away) a marvellous little
band of light, of the colour of heliotrope, spread over the lawn like a
carpet on which I could not tire of treading to and fro with lingering
feet, nostalgic and profane, while Francoise shouted: "Come on, button
up your coat, look, and let's get away!" and I remarked for the first
time how common her speech was, and that she had, alas, no blue feather
in her hat.

Only, would _she_ come again to the Champs-Elysees? Next day she was
not there; but I saw her on the following days; I spent all my time
revolving round the spot where she was at play with her friends, to such
effect that once, when, they found, they were not enough to make up a
prisoner's base, she sent one of them to ask me if I cared to complete
their side, and from that day I played with her whenever she came.
But this did not happen every day; there were days when she had
been prevented from coming by her lessons, by her catechism, by a
luncheon-party, by the whole of that life, separated from my own, which
twice only, condensed into the name of Gilberte, I had felt pass so
painfully close to me, in the hawthorn lane near Combray and on the
grass of the Champs-Elysees. On such days she would have told us
beforehand that we should not see her; if it were because of her
lessons, she would say: "It is too tiresome, I sha'n't be able to come
to-morrow; you will all be enjoying yourselves here without me," with an
air of regret which to some extent consoled me; if, on the other hand,
she had been invited to a party, and I, not knowing this, asked her
whether she was coming to play with us, she would reply: "Indeed I hope
not! Indeed I hope Mamma will let me go to my friend's." But on these
days I did at least know that I should not see her, whereas on others,
without any warning, her mother would take her for a drive, or some such
thing, and next day she would say: "Oh, yes! I went out with Mamma,"
as though it had been the most natural thing in the world, and not the
greatest possible misfortune for some one else. There were also the days
of bad weather on which her governess, afraid, on her own account, of
the rain, would