What
had happened was that the violin had risen to a series of high notes, on
which it rested as though expecting something, an expectancy which it
prolonged without ceasing to hold on to the notes, in the exaltation with
which it already saw the expected object approaching, and with a desperate
effort to continue until its arrival, to welcome it before itself expired,
to keep the way open for a moment longer, with all its remaining strength,
that the stranger might enter in, as one holds a door open that would
otherwise automatically close. And before Swann had had time to understand
what was happening, to think: "It is the little phrase from Vinteuil's
sonata. I mustn't listen!", all his memories of the days when Odette had
been in love with him, which he had succeeded, up till that evening, in
keeping invisible in the depths of his being, deceived by this sudden
reflection of a season of love, whose sun, they supposed, had dawned
again, had awakened from their slumber, had taken wing and risen to sing
maddeningly in his ears, without pity for his present desolation, the
forgotten strains of happiness.
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