" And Swann's thoughts were borne for the first time on a
wave of pity and tenderness towards that Vinteuil, towards that unknown,
exalted brother who also must have suffered so greatly; what could his
life have been? From the depths of what well of sorrow could he have drawn
that god-like strength, that unlimited power of creation?
When it was the little phrase that spoke to him of the vanity of his
sufferings, Swann found a sweetness in that very wisdom which, but a
little while back, had seemed to him intolerable when he thought that he
could read it on the faces of indifferent strangers, who would regard his
love as a digression that was without importance. 'Twas because the little
phrase, unlike them, whatever opinion it might hold on the short duration
of these states of the soul, saw in them something not, as everyone else
saw, less serious than the events of everyday life, but, on the contrary,
so far superior to everyday life as to be alone worthy of the trouble of
expressing it. Those graces of an intimate sorrow, 'twas them that the
phrase endeavoured to imitate, to create anew; and even their essence, for
all that it consists in being incommunicable and in appearing trivial to
everyone save him who has experience of them, the little phrase had
captured, had rendered visible.
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