ight be the minute personage whom,
in an enlarged photograph of St. Mark's that had been lent to me, the
operator had portrayed, in a bowler hat, in front of the portico), when
I heard my father say: "It must be pretty cold, still, on the Grand
Canal; whatever you do, don't forget to pack your winter greatcoat and
your thick suit." At these words I was raised to a sort of ecstasy;
a thing that I had until then deemed impossible, I felt myself to be
penetrating indeed between those "rocks of amethyst, like a reef in the
Indian Ocean"; by a supreme muscular effort, a long way in excess of my
real strength, stripping myself, as of a shell that served no purpose,
of the air in my own room which surrounded me, I replaced it by an equal
quantity of Venetian air, that marine atmosphere, indescribable and
peculiar as the atmosphere of the dreams which my imagination had
secreted in the name of Venice; I could feel at work within me a
miraculous disincarnation; it was at once accompanied by that vague
desire to vomit which one feels when one has a very sore throat; and
they had to put me to bed with a fever so persistent that the doctor
not only assured my parents that a visit, that spring, to Florence and
Venice was absolutely out of the question, but warned their that, even
when I should have completely recovered, I must, for at least a year,
give up all idea of travelling, and be kept from anything that wa;
liable to excite me.

And, alas, he forbade also, most categorically, my being allowed to go
to the theatre, to hear Berma; the sublime artist, whose genius Bergotte
had proclaimed, might, by introducing me to something else that was,
perhaps, as important and as beautiful, have consoled me for not having
been to Florence and Venice, for not going to Balbec. My parents had
to be content with sending me, every day, to the Champs-Elysees, in
the custody of a person who would see that I did not tire myself; this
person was none other than Francoise, who had entered our service
after the death of my aunt Leonie. Going to the Champs-Elysees I found
unendurable. If only Bergotte had described the place in one of his
books, I should, no doubt, have longed to see and to know it, like so
many things else of which a simulacrum had first found its way into
my imagination. That kept things warm, made them live, gave them
personality, and I sought then to find their counterpart in reality,
but in this public garden there was nothing th