" And then I would be obliged to pause for breath; so stifling was
the pressure, upon that part of me where it was for ever inscribed, of
that name which, at the moment when I heard it, seemed to me fuller, more
portentous than any other name, because it was burdened with the weight of
all the occasions on which I had secretly uttered it in my mind. It caused
me a pleasure which I was ashamed to have dared to demand from my parents,
for so great was it that to have procured it for me must have involved
them in an immensity of effort, and with no recompense, since for them
there was no pleasure in the sound. And so I would prudently turn the
conversation. And by a scruple of conscience, also. All the singular
seductions which I had stored up in the sound of that word Swann, I found
again as soon as it was uttered. And then it occurred to me suddenly that
my parents could not fail to experience the same emotions, that they must
find themselves sharing my point of view, that they perceived in their
turn, that they condoned, that they even embraced my visionary longings,
and I was as wretched as though I had ravished and corrupted the innocence
of their hearts.
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