Swann knew that the phrase was going to
speak to him once again. And his personality was now so divided that the
strain of waiting for the imminent moment when he would find himself face
to face, once more, with the phrase, convulsed him in one of those sobs
which a fine line of poetry or a piece of alarming news will wring from
us, not when we are alone, but when we repeat one or the other to a
friend, in whom we see ourselves reflected, like a third person, whose
probable emotion softens him. It reappeared, but this time to remain
poised in the air, and to sport there for a moment only, as though
immobile, and shortly to expire. And so Swann lost nothing of the precious
time for which it lingered. It was still there, like an iridescent bubble
that floats for a while unbroken. As a rainbow, when its brightness fades,
seems to subside, then soars again and, before it is extinguished, is
glorified with greater splendour than it has ever shewn; so to the two
colours which the phrase had hitherto allowed to appear it added others
now, chords shot with every hue in the prism, and made them sing. Swann
dared not move, and would have liked to compel all the other people in the
room to remain still also, as if the slightest movement might embarrass
the magic presence, supernatural, delicious, frail, that would so easily
vanish.
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