a charming effect. But from this afternoon, when I had learned
that Mile. Swann was a creature living in such rare and fortunate
circumstances, bathed, as in her natural element, in such a sea of
privilege that, if she should ask her parents whether anyone were coming
to dinner, she would be answered in those two syllables, radiant with
celestial light, would hear the name of that golden guest who was to
her no more than an old friend of her family, Bergotte; that for her the
intimate conversation at table, corresponding to what my great-aunt's
conversation was for me, would be the words of Bergotte upon all those
subjects which he had not been able to take up in his writings, and on
which I would fain have heard him utter oracles; and that, above all,
when she went to visit other towns, he would be walking by her side,
unrecognised and glorious, like the gods who came down, of old, from
heaven to dwell among mortal men: then I realised both the rare worth
of a creature such as Mile. Swann, and, at the same time, how coarse and
ignorant I should appear to her; and I felt so keenly how pleasant and
yet how impossible it would be for me to become her friend that I was
filled at once with longing and with despair. And usually, from this
time forth, when I thought of her, I would see her standing before the
porch of a cathedral, explaining to me what each of the statues meant,
and, with a smile which was my highest commendation, presenting me, as
her friend, to Bergotte. And invariably the charm of all the fancies
which the thought of cathedrals used to inspire in me, the charm of the
hills and valleys of the He de France and of the plains of Normandy,
would radiate brightness and beauty over the picture I had formed in my
mind of Mile. Swann; nothing more remained but to know and to love
her. Once we believe that a fellow-creature has a share in some unknown
existence to which that creature's love for ourselves can win us
admission, that is, of all the preliminary conditions which Love exacts,
the one to which he attaches most importance, the one which makes him
generous or indifferent as to the rest. Even those women who pretend
that they judge a man by his exterior only, see in that exterior an
emanation from some special way of life. And that is why they fall
in love with a soldier or a fireman, whose uniform makes them less
particular about his face; they kiss and believe that beneath the
crushing breastplate there beat