ne 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-Elysees 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 appearance 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
Ambassadeurs 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 without more delay, I saw Gilberte, so quick and informal with
us, make a ceremonious bow to the old lady with the _Debats_ (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 parents, or with friends of her parents, paying
visits, in all the rest, that escaped me, of her existence. But of that
existence no one gave me so strong an impression as did M. Swann, who
came a little later to fetch his daughter. That was because he and Mme.
Swann--inasmuch as their daughter lived with them, as her lessons,
her games, her friendships depended upon them--contained for me, like
Gilberte, perhaps even more than Gilberte, as befitted subjects that had
an all-powerful control over her in whom it must have had its source, an
undefined, an inaccessible quality of melancholy charm. Everything that
concerned them was on my part the object of so constant a preoccupation
that the days on which, as on this day, M. Swann (whom I had seen so
often, long ago, without his having aroused my curiosity, when he
was still on good terms with my parents) came for Gilberte to the
Champs-Elysees, once