It is the same in life; the heart changes, and that is
our worst misfortune; but we learn of it only from reading or by
imagination; for in reality its alteration, like that of certain natural
phenomena, is so gradual that, even if we are able to distinguish,
successively, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual
sensation of change.
Next to, but distinctly less intimate a part of myself than this human
element, would come the view, more or less projected before my eyes, of
the country in which the action of the story was taking place, which made
a far stronger impression on my mind than the other, the actual landscape
which would meet my eyes when I raised them from my book. In this way, for
two consecutive summers I used to sit in the heat of our Combray garden,
sick with a longing inspired by the book I was then reading for a land of
mountains and rivers, where I could see an endless vista of sawmills,
where beneath the limpid currents fragments of wood lay mouldering in beds
of watercress; and nearby, rambling and clustering along low walls, purple
flowers and red. And since there was always lurking in my mind the dream
of a woman who would enrich me with her love, that dream in those two
summers used to be quickened with the freshness and coolness of running
water; and whoever she might be, the woman whose image I called to mind,
purple flowers and red would at once spring up on either side of her like
complementary colours.
Pages:
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163