If he arrived after the hour
at which Odette sent her servants to bed, before ringing the bell at the
gate of her little garden, he would go round first into the other street,
over which, at the ground-level, among the windows (all exactly alike, but
darkened) of the adjoining houses, shone the solitary lighted window of
her room. He would rap upon the pane, and she would hear the signal, and
answer, before running to meet him at the gate. He would find, lying open
on the piano, some of her favourite music, the _Valse des Roses_, the
_Pauvre Fou_ of Tagliafico (which, according to the instructions embodied
in her will, was to be played at her funeral); but he would ask her,
instead, to give him the little phrase from Vinteuil's sonata. It was true
that Odette played vilely, but often the fairest impression that remains
in our minds of a favourite air is one which has arisen out of a jumble of
wrong notes struck by unskilful fingers upon a tuneless piano. The little
phrase was associated still, in Swann's mind, with his love for Odette. He
felt clearly that this love was something to which there were no
corresponding external signs, whose meaning could not be proved by any but
himself; he realised, too, that Odette's qualities were not such as to
justify his setting so high a value on the hours he spent in her company.
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