The charm that he had been made to feel by certain evenings in the Bois, a charm of which Vinteul’s sonata served to remind him, he could not have recaptured by questioning Odette, although she, as well as the little phrase, had been his companion there. But Odette had been merely his companion, by his side, not (as the phrase had been) within him, and so had seen nothing⁠—nor would she, had she been a thousand times as comprehending, have seen anything of that vision which for no one among us (or at least I was long under the impression that this rule admitted no exception) can be made externally visible. “It is rather charming, don’t you think,” Swann continued, “that sound can give a reflection, like water, or glass. It is curious, too, that Vinteul’s phrase now shows me only the things to which I paid no attention then. Of my troubles, my loves of those days it recalls nothing, it has altered all my values.” “Charles, I don’t think that’s very polite to me, what you’re saying.” “Not polite? Really, you women are superb! I was simply trying to explain to this young man that what the music shows⁠—to me, at least⁠—is not for a moment ‘Free will’ or ‘In Tune with the Infinite,’ but shall we say old Verdurin in his frock coat in the palm-house at the Jardin d’Acclimatation.