of the
enemy, as though there had been some uncertainty among a vast number of
possible invaders, and then, soon after, my grandfather would say: "I
can hear Swann's voice." And, indeed, one could tell him only by his
voice, for it was difficult to make out his face with its arched nose
and green eyes, under a high forehead fringed with fair, almost red
hair, dressed in the Bressant style, because in the garden we used as
little light as possible, so as not to attract mosquitoes: and I would
slip away as though not going for anything in particular, to tell them
to bring out the syrups; for my grandmother made a great point, thinking
it 'nicer/ of their not being allowed to seem anything out of the
ordinary, which we kept for visitors only. Although a far younger man,
M. Swann was very much attached to my grandfather, who had been an
intimate friend, in his time, of Swann's father, an excellent but an
eccentric man in whom the least little thing would, it seemed, often
check the flow of his spirits and divert the current of his thoughts.
Several times in the course of a year I would hear my grandfather tell
at table the story, which never varied, of the behaviour of M. Swann the
elder upon the death of his wife, by whose bedside he had watched
day and night. My grandfather, who had not seen him for a long time,
hastened to join him at the Swanns' family property on the outskirts of
Combray, and managed to entice him for a moment, weeping profusely, out
of the death-chamber, so that he should not be present when the body was
laid in its coffin. They took a turn or two in the park, where there was
a little sunshine. Suddenly M. Swann seized my grandfather by the arm
and cried, "Oh, my dear old friend, how fortunate we are to be walking
here together on such a charming day! Don't you see how pretty they are,
all these trees--my hawthorns, and my new pond, on which you have never
congratulated me? You look as glum as a night-cap. Don't you feel this
little breeze? Ah! whatever you may say, it's good to be alive all the
same, my dear Amedee!" And then, abruptly, the memory of his dead wife
returned to him, and probably thinking it too complicated to inquire
into how, at such a time, he could have allowed himself to be carried
away by an impulse of happiness, he confined himself to a gesture which
he habitually employed whenever any perplexing question came into his
mind: that is, he passed his hand across his forehead, dried h