Swann's Way

anticipation, one then feels. Hardly even does one think of oneself,
but only how to escape from oneself. Obscurely awaited, immanent and
concealed, it rouses to such a paroxysm, at the moment when at last it
makes itself felt, those other pleasures which we find in the tender
glance, in the kiss of her who is by our side, that it seems to us, more
than anything else, a sort of transport of gratitude for the kindness of
heart of our companion and for her touching predilection of ourselves,
which we measure by the benefits, by the happiness that she showers upon
us.

Alas, it was in vain that I implored the dungeon-keep of Roussainville,
that I begged it to send out to meet me some daughter of its village,
appealing to it as to the sole confidant to whom I had disclosed my
earliest desire when, from the top floor of our house at Combray, from
the little room that smelt of orris-root, I had peered out and seen
nothing but its tower, framed in the square of the half-opened window,
while, with the heroic scruples of a traveller setting forth for
unknown climes, or of a desperate wretch hesitating on the verge of
self-destruction, faint with emotion, I explored, across the bounds of