Swann's Way

spontaneous and unaccountable, seems to have so far recovered from his
malady that he begins to envisage the possibility, hitherto beyond
all hope, of starting to lead--and better late than never--a wholly
different life, Swann found in himself, in the memory of the phrase that
he had heard, in certain other sonatas which he had made people play
over to him, to see whether he might not, perhaps, discover his phrase
among them, the presence of one of those invisible realities in which
he had ceased to believe, but to which, as though the music had had upon
the moral barrenness from which he was suffering a sort of recreative
influence, he was conscious once again of a desire, almost, indeed, of
the power to consecrate his life. But, never having managed to find out
whose work it was that he had heard played that evening, he had been
unable to procure a copy, and finally had forgotten the quest. He had
indeed, in the course of the next few days, encountered several of the
people who had been at the party with him, and had questioned them;
but most of them had either arrived after or left before the piece was
played; some had indeed been in the house, but had gone into another