But when I arrived at the Champs-Elysees,--and, as at first sight it
appeared, was in a position to confront my love, so as to make it undergo
the necessary modifications, with its living and independent cause--as
soon as I was in the presence of that Gilberte Swann on the sight of whom
I had counted to revive the images that my tired memory had lost and could
not find again, of that Gilberte Swann with whom I had been playing the
day before, and whom I had just been prompted to greet, and then to
recognise, by a blind instinct like that which, when we are walking, sets
one foot before the other, without giving us time to think what we are
doing, then at once it became as though she and the little girl who had
inspired my dreams had been two different people. If, for instance, I had
retained in my memory overnight two fiery eyes above plump and rosy
cheeks, Gilberte's face would now offer me (and with emphasis) something
that I distinctly had not remembered, a certain sharpening and
prolongation of the nose which, instantaneously associating itself with
certain others of her features, assumed the importance of those
characteristics which, in natural history, are used to define a species,
and transformed her into a little girl of the kind that have sharpened
profiles.
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