my little line was going--to
annoy her, no doubt, and doubly so because this contrivance would make
me ridiculous in Swann's eyes--but was going all the same to admit me,
invisibly and by stealth, into the same room as herself, was going
to whisper from me into her ear; for that forbidden and unfriendly
dining-room, where but a moment ago the ice itself--with burned nuts in
it--and the finger-bowls seemed to me to be concealing pleasures that
were mischievous and of a mortal sadness because Mamma was tasting of
them and I was far away, had opened its doors to me and, like a ripe
fruit which bursts through its skin, was going to pour out into my
intoxicated heart the gushing sweetness of Mamma's attention while she
was reading what I had written. Now I was no longer separated from her;
the barriers were down; an exquisite thread was binding us. Besides,
that was not all, for surely Mamma would come.

As for the agony through which I had just passed, I imagined that Swann
would have laughed heartily at it if he had read my letter and had
guessed its purpose; whereas, on the contrary, as I was to learn in due
course, a similar anguish had been the bane of his life for many years,
and no one perhaps could have understood my feelings at that moment so
well as himself; to him, that anguish which lies in knowing that the
creature one adores is in some place of enjoyment where oneself is not
and cannot follow--to him that anguish came through Love, to which it
is in a sense predestined, by which it must be equipped and adapted; but
when, as had befallen me, such an anguish possesses one's soul before
Love has yet entered into one's life, then it must drift, awaiting
Love's coming, vague and free, without precise attachment, at the
disposal of one sentiment to-day, of another to-morrow, of filial piety
or affection for a comrade. And the joy with which I first bound myself
apprentice, when Francoise returned to tell me that my letter would be
delivered; Swann, too, had known well that false joy which a friend can
give us, or some relative of the woman we love, when on his arrival at
the house or theatre where she is to be found, for some ball or party or
'first-night' at which he is to meet her, he sees us wandering outside,
desperately awaiting some opportunity of communicating with her. He
recognises us, greets us familiarly, and asks what we are doing there.
And when we invent a story of having some urgent message to give to