And often, when the cold government of reason stood unchallenged, he would
readily have ceased to sacrifice so many of his intellectual and social
interests to this imaginary pleasure. But the little phrase, as soon as it
struck his ear, had the power to liberate in him the room that was needed
to contain it; the proportions of Swann's soul were altered; a margin was
left for a form of enjoyment which corresponded no more than his love for
Odette to any external object, and yet was not, like his enjoyment of that
love, purely individual, but assumed for him an objective reality superior
to that of other concrete things. This thirst for an untasted charm, the
little phrase would stimulate it anew in him, but without bringing him
any definite gratification to assuage it. With the result that those parts
of Swann's soul in which the little phrase had obliterated all care for
material interests, those human considerations which affect all men alike,
were left bare by it, blank pages on which he was at liberty to inscribe
the name of Odette. Moreover, where Odette's affection might seem ever so
little abrupt and disappointing, the little phrase would come to
supplement it, to amalgamate with it its own mysterious essence.
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