We would be greeted by the gunsmith,
we would drop our letters into the box, we would tell Theodore, from
Francoise, as we passed, that she had run out of oil or coffee, and we
would leave the town by the road which ran along the white fence of M.
Swann's park. Before reaching it we would be met on our way by the scent
of his lilac-trees, come out to welcome strangers. Out of the fresh little
green hearts of their foliage the lilacs raised inquisitively over the
fence of the park their plumes of white or purple blossom, which glowed,
even in the shade, with the sunlight in which they had been bathed. Some
of them, half-concealed by the little tiled house, called the Archers'
Lodge, in which Swann's keeper lived, overtopped its gothic gable with
their rosy minaret. The nymphs of spring would have seemed coarse and
vulgar in comparison with these young houris, who retained, in this French
garden, the pure and vivid colouring of a Persian miniature. Despite my
desire to throw my arms about their pliant forms and to draw down towards
me the starry locks that crowned their fragrant heads, we would pass them
by without stopping, for my parents had ceased to visit Tansonville since
Swann's marriage, and, so as not to appear to be looking into his park, we
would, instead of taking the road which ran beside its boundary and then
climbed straight up to the open fields, choose another way, which led in
the same direction, but circuitously, and brought us out rather too far
from home.
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