"Leonie," said my grandfather on our return, "I wish we had had you with
us this afternoon. You would never have known Tansonville. If I had had
the courage I would have cut you a branch of that pink hawthorn you used
to like so much." And so my grandfather told her the story of our walk,
either just to amuse her, or perhaps because there was still some hope
that she might be stimulated to rise from her bed and to go out of doors.
For in earlier days she had been very fond of Tansonville, and, moreover,
Swann's visits had been the last that she had continued to receive, at a
time when she had already closed her doors to all the world. And just as,
when he called, in these later days, to inquire for her (and she was still
the only person in our household whom he would ask to see), she would send
down to say that she was tired at the moment and resting, but that she
would be happy to see him another time, so, this evening, she said to my
grandfather, "Yes, some day when the weather is fine I shall go for a
drive as far as the gate of the park." And in saying this she was quite
sincere. She would have liked to see Swann and Tansonville again; but the
mere wish to do so sufficed for all that remained of her strength, which
its fulfilment would have more than exhausted.
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