And so I concerned myself no
longer with the mystery that lay hidden in a form or a perfume, quite at
ease in my mind, since I was taking it home with me, protected by its
visible and tangible covering, beneath which I should find it still alive,
like the fish which, on days when I had been allowed to go out fishing, I
used to carry back in my basket, buried in a couch of grass which kept
them cool and fresh. Once in the house again I would begin to think of
something else, and so my mind would become littered (as my room was with
the flowers that I had gathered on my walks, or the odds and ends that
people had given me) with a stone from the surface of which the sunlight
was reflected, a roof, the sound of a bell, the smell of fallen leaves, a
confused mass of different images, under which must have perished long ago
the reality of which I used to have some foreboding, but which I never had
the energy to discover and bring to light. Once, however, when we had
prolonged our walk far beyond its ordinary limits, and so had been very
glad to encounter, half way home, as afternoon darkened into evening, Dr.
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