midday
Even after I had returned home I did not taste them , since , every day , the necessity which made me hope that on the morrow I should arrive at the clear , calm , happy contemplation of Gilberte , that she would at last confess her love for me , explaining to me the reasons by which she had been obliged , hitherto , to conceal it , that same necessity forced me to regard the past as of no account , to look ahead of me only , to consider the little advantages that she had given me not in themselves and as if they were self-sufficient , but like fresh rungs of the ladder on which I might set my feet , which were going to allow me to advance a step further and finally to attain the happiness which I had not yet encountered . If , at times , she shewed me these marks of her affection , she troubled me also by seeming not to be pleased to see me , and this happened often on the very days on which I had most counted for the realisation of my hopes . I was sure that Gilberte was coming to the Champs-Elysées , and I felt an elation which seemed merely the anticipation of a great happiness when -- going into the drawing-room in the morning to kiss Mamma , who was already dressed to go out , the coils of her black hair elaborately built up , and her beautiful hands , plump and white , fragrant still with soap -- I had been apprised , by seeing a column of dust standing by itself in the air above the piano , and by hearing a barrel-organ playing , beneath the window , _ En revenant de la revue _ , that the winter had received , until nightfall , an unexpected , radiant visit from a day of spring . While we sat at luncheon , by opening her window , the lady opposite had sent packing , in the twinkling of an eye , from beside my chair -- to sweep in a single stride over the whole width of our dining-room -- a sunbeam which had lain down there for its midday rest and returned to continue it there a moment later . At school , during the one o'clock lesson , the sun made me sick with impatience and boredom as it let fall a golden stream that crept to the edge of my desk , like an invitation to the feast at which I could not myself arrive before three o'clock , until the moment when Françoise came to fetch me at the school-gate , and we made our way towards the Champs-Elysées through streets decorated with sunlight , dense with people , over which the balconies , detached by the sun and made vaporous , seemed to float in front of the houses like clouds of gold . Alas ! in the Champs-Elysées I found no Gilberte ; she had not yet arrived .