We would return by the Boulevard de la
Gare, which contained the most attractive villas in the town. In each of
their gardens the moonlight, copying the art of Hubert Robert, had
scattered its broken staircases of white marble, its fountains of water
and gates temptingly ajar. Its beams had swept away the telegraph office.
All that was left of it was a column, half shattered, but preserving the
beauty of a ruin which endures for all time. I would by now be dragging my
weary limbs, and ready to drop with sleep; the balmy scent of the
lime-trees seemed a consolation which I could obtain only at the price of
great suffering and exhaustion, and not worthy of the effort. From gates
far apart the watchdogs, awakened by our steps in the silence, would set
up an antiphonal barking, as I still hear them bark, at times, in the
evenings, and it is in their custody (when the public gardens of Combray
were constructed on its site) that the Boulevard de la Gare must have
taken refuge, for wherever I may be, as soon as they begin their alternate
challenge and acceptance, I can see it again with all its lime-trees, and
its pavement glistening beneath the moon.
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