And then, suddenly having reached a certain point from which he was
prepared to follow it, after pausing for a moment, abruptly it changed its
direction, and in a fresh movement, more rapid, multiform, melancholy,
incessant, sweet, it bore him off with it towards a vista of joys
unknown. Then it vanished. He hoped, with a passionate longing, that he
might find it again, a third time. And reappear it did, though without
speaking to him more clearly, bringing him, indeed, a pleasure less
profound. But when he was once more at home he needed it, he was like a
man into whose life a woman, whom he has seen for a moment passing by, has
brought a new form of beauty, which strengthens and enlarges his own power
of perception, without his knowing even whether he is ever to see her
again whom he loves already, although he knows nothing of her, not even
her name.
Indeed this passion for a phrase of music seemed, in the first few months,
to be bringing into Swann's life the possibility of a sort of rejuvenation.
He had so long since ceased to direct his course towards any
ideal goal, and had confined himself to the pursuit of ephemeral
satisfactions, that he had come to believe, though without ever formally
stating his belief even to himself, that he would remain all his life in
that condition, which death alone could alter.
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