nuity, stability or caprice. But the notes themselves
have vanished before these sensations have developed sufficiently to
escape submersion under those which the following, or even simultaneous
notes have already begun to awaken in us. And this indefinite perception
would continue to smother in its molten liquidity the _motifs_ which now
and then emerge, barely discernible, to plunge again and disappear and
drown; recognised only by the particular kind of pleasure which they
instil, impossible to describe, to recollect, to name; ineffable;--if
our memory, like a labourer who toils at the laying down of firm
foundations beneath the tumult of the waves, did not, by fashioning for
us facsimiles of those fugitive phrases, enable us to compare and to
contrast them with those that follow. And so, hardly had the delicious
sensation, which Swann had experienced, died away, before his memory
had furnished him with an immediate transcript, summary, it is true,
and provisional, but one on which he had kept his eyes fixed while
the playing continued, so effectively that, when the same impression
suddenly returned, it was no longer uncapturable. He was able to picture
to himself its extent, its symmetrical arrangement, its notation, the
strength of its expression; he had before him that definite object which
was no longer pure music, but rather design, architecture, thought,
and which allowed the actual music to be recalled. This time he had
distinguished, quite clearly, a phrase which emerged for a few moments
from the waves of sound. It had at once held out to him an invitation to
partake of intimate pleasures, of whose existence, before hearing it, he
had never dreamed, into which he felt that nothing but this phrase could
initiate him; and he had been filled with love for it, as with a new and
strange desire.

With a slow and rhythmical movement it led him here, there, everywhere,
towards a state of happiness noble, unintelligible, yet clearly
indicated. And then, suddenly having reached a certain point from which
he was prepared to follow it, after pausing for a moment, abruptly it
changed its direction, and in a fresh movement, more rapid, multiform,
melancholy, incessant, sweet, it bore him off with it towards a vista
of joys unknown. Then it vanished. He hoped, with a passionate longing,
that he might find it again, a third time. And reappear it did, though
without speaking to him more clearly, bringing him, indeed, a pleasu