Time Regained (In Search of Lost Time #7)

by Marcel Proust

A little later I had seen with the same indifference the flecks of orange and gold with which it splashed the windows of a house; and finally, later still, I had seen another house, which looked as though it were built of some strange pink material. But I made these observations with the same absolute indifference as if, walking in a garden with a lady, I had seen a piece of glass and a little further on an object made of some alabaster-like substance, the unusual colour of which would not normally have been enough to rouse me from my languorous boredom but none the less, out of politeness to the lady, in order to say something and also to show that I had noticed the colour, I had pointed out in passing the coloured glass and the fragment of stucco. In the same way, to put my mind at rest, I pointed out to myself, as to somebody who might have accompanied me and might have been more capable than I of taking pleasure from it, the fiery reflections in the windows and the translucent pink of the house. But the companion to whom I had pointed out these curious effects was of a nature no doubt less enthusiastic than plenty of good-natured people who would be ravished by such a view, for he had registered the colours without a trace of pleasure.