Swann's Way

her face would light up like a grey landscape, swathed in clouds which,
suddenly, are swept away and the dull scene transfigured, at the moment
of the sun's setting. The life which occupied Odette at such times, even
the future which she seemed to be dreamily regarding, Swann could have
shared with her. No evil disturbance seemed to have left any effect on
them. Rare as they became, those moments did not occur in vain. By the
process of memory, Swann joined the fragments together, abolished the
intervals between them, cast, as in molten gold, the image of an Odette
compact of kindness and tranquillity, for whom he was to make, later on
(as we shall see in the second part of this story) sacrifices which the
other Odette would never have won from him. But how rare those moments
were, and how seldom he now saw her! Even in regard to their evening
meetings, she would never tell him until the last minute whether she
would be able to see him, for, reckoning on his being always free, she
wished first to be certain that no one else would offer to come to her.
She would plead that she was obliged to wait for an answer which was of
the very greatest importance, and if, even after she had made Swann