And one proof that Swann was not
mistaken when he believed in the real existence of this phrase, was that
anyone with an ear at all delicate for music would at once have detected
the imposture had Vinteuil, endowed with less power to see and to render
its forms, sought to dissemble (by adding a line, here and there, of his
own invention) the dimness of his vision or the feebleness of his hand.
The phrase had disappeared. Swann knew that it would come again at the end
of the last movement, after a long passage which Mme. Verdurin's pianist
always 'skipped.' There were in this passage some admirable ideas which
Swann had not distinguished on first hearing the sonata, and which he now
perceived, as if they had, in the cloakroom of his memory, divested
themselves of their uniform disguise of novelty. Swann listened to all the
scattered themes which entered into the composition of the phrase, as its
premises enter into the inevitable conclusion of a syllogism; he was
assisting at the mystery of its birth. "Audacity," he exclaimed to
himself, "as inspired, perhaps, as a Lavoisier's or an Ampere's, the
audacity of a Vinteuil making experiment, discovering the secret laws that
govern an unknown force, driving across a region unexplored towards the
one possible goal the invisible team in which he has placed his trust and
which he never may discern!" How charming the dialogue which Swann now
heard between piano and violin, at the beginning of the last passage.
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