t follow the curve of some
more bold projection. And one proof that Swann was not mistaken when he
believed in the real existence of this phrase, was that anyone with an
ear at all delicate for music would at once have detected the imposture
had Vinteuil, endowed with less power to see and to render its forms,
sought to dissemble (by adding a line, here and there, of his own
invention) the dimness of his vision or the feebleness of his hand.

The phrase had disappeared. Swann knew that it would come again at the
end of the last movement, after a long passage which Mme. Verdurin's
pianist always 'skipped.' There were in this passage some admirable
ideas which Swann had not distinguished on first hearing the sonata, and
which he now perceived, as if they had, in the cloakroom of his memory,
divested themselves of their uniform disguise of novelty. Swann listened
to all the scattered themes which entered into the composition of
the phrase, as its premises enter into the inevitable conclusion of a
syllogism; he was assisting at the mystery of its birth. "Audacity,"
he exclaimed to himself, "as inspired, perhaps, as a Lavoisier's or an
Ampere's, the audacity of a Vinteuil making experiment, discovering
the secret laws that govern an unknown force, driving across a region
unexplored towards the one possible goal the invisible team in which he
has placed his trust and which he never may discern!" How charming
the dialogue which Swann now heard between piano and violin, at the
beginning of the last passage. The suppression of human speech, so far
from letting fancy reign there uncontrolled (as one might have thought),
had eliminated it altogether. Never was spoken language of such
inflexible necessity, never had it known questions so pertinent, such
obvious replies. At first the piano complained alone, like a bird
deserted by its mate; the violin heard and answered it, as from a
neighbouring tree. It was as at the first beginning of the world, as
if there were not yet but these twain upon the earth, or rather in this
world closed against all the rest, so fashioned by the logic of its
creator that in it there should never be any but themselves; the world
of this sonata. Was it a bird, was it the soul, not yet made perfect, of
the little phrase, was it a fairy, invisibly somewhere lamenting, whose
plaint the piano heard and tenderly repeated? Its cries were so sudden
that the violinist must snatch up his bow and race to catch them