enly noticed a straw basket lying
forgotten on the grass by the side of a line whose float was bobbing
in the water, I made a great effort to keep my father and grandfather
looking in another direction, away from this sign that she might, after
all, be in residence. Still, as Swann had told us that he ought not,
really, to go away just then, as he had some people staying in the
house, the line might equally belong to one of these guests. Not a
footstep was to be heard on any of the paths. Somewhere in one of the
tall trees, making a stage in its height, an invisible bird, desperately
attempting to make the day seem shorter, was exploring with a long,
continuous note the solitude that pressed it on every side, but it
received at once so unanimous an answer, so powerful a repercussion of
silence and of immobility that, one would have said, it had arrested
for all eternity the moment which it had been trying to make pass more
quickly. The sunlight fell so implacably from a fixed sky that one was
naturally inclined to slip away out of the reach of its attentions, and
even the slumbering water, whose repose was perpetually being invaded by
the insects that swarmed above its surface, while it dreamed, no doubt,
of some imaginary maelstrom, intensified the uneasiness which the sight
of that floating cork had wrought in me, by appearing to draw it at
full speed across the silent reaches of a mirrored firmament; now almost
vertical, it seemed on the point of plunging down out of sight, and
I had begun to ask myself whether, setting aside the longing and the
terror that I had of making her acquaintance, it was not actually my
duty to warn Mlle. Swann that the fish was biting--when I was obliged
to run after my father and grandfather, who were calling me, and were
surprised that I had not followed them along the little path, climbing
up hill towards the open fields, into which they had already turned. I
found the whole path throbbing with the fragrance of hawthorn-blossom.
The hedge resembled a series of chapels, whose walls were no longer
visible under the mountains of flowers that were heaped upon their
altars; while underneath, the sun cast a square of light upon the
ground, as though it had shone in upon them through a window; the scent
that swept out over me from them was as rich, and as circumscribed in
its range, as though I had been standing before the Lady-altar, and
the flowers, themselves adorned also, held out each its l