They were as transparent, as liquid-seeming as life itself. I would not
have had her sacrifice a single one of them. I should have liked her to be
able to buy them, to liberate them all. Still, I pointed out one that had
the same colour as her eyes. Gilberte took it, turned it about until it
shone with a ray of gold, fondled it, paid its ransom, but at once handed
me her captive, saying: "Take it; it is for you, I give it to you, keep it
to remind yourself of me."
Another time, being still obsessed by the desire to hear Berma in classic
drama, I had asked her whether she had not a copy of a pamphlet in which
Bergotte spoke of Racine, and which was now out of print. She had told me
to let her know the exact title of it, and that evening I had sent her a
little telegram, writing on its envelope the name, Gilberte Swann, which I
had so often, traced in my exercise-books. Next day she brought me in a
parcel tied with pink bows and sealed with white wax, the pamphlet, a copy
of which she had managed to find. "You see, it is what you asked me for,"
she said, taking from her muff the telegram that I had sent her.
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