m. I did not, at that time, have dinner with
the family: I came out to the garden after dinner, and at nine I said
good night and went to bed. But on these evenings I used to dine earlier
than the others, and to come in afterwards and sit at table until eight
o'clock, when it was understood that I must go upstairs; that frail and
precious kiss which Mamma used always to leave upon my lips when I
was in bed and just going to sleep I had to take with me from the
dining-room to my own, and to keep inviolate all the time that it
took me to undress, without letting its sweet charm be broken, without
letting its volatile essence diffuse itself and evaporate; and just on
those very evenings when I must needs take most pains to receive it with
due formality, I had to snatch it, to seize it instantly and in public,
without even having the time or being properly free to apply to what I
was doing the punctiliousness which madmen use who compel themselves to
exclude all other thoughts from their minds while they are shutting a
door, so that when the sickness of uncertainty sweeps over them again
they can triumphantly face and overcome it with the recollection of the
precise moment in which the door was shut.

We were all in the garden when the double peal of the gate-bell sounded
shyly. Everyone knew that it must be Swann, and yet they looked at one
another inquiringly and sent my grandmother scouting.

"See that you thank him intelligibly for the wine," my grandfather
warned his two sisters-in-law; "you know how good it is, and it is a
huge case."

"Now, don't start whispering!" said my great-aunt. "How would you like
to come into a house and find everyone muttering to themselves?"

"Ah! There's M. Swann," cried my father. "Let's ask him if he thinks it
will be fine to-morrow."

My mother fancied that a word from her would wipe out all the
unpleasantness which my family had contrived to make Swann feel since
his marriage. She found an opportunity to draw him aside for a moment.
But I followed her: I could not bring myself to let her go out of reach
of me while I felt that in a few minutes I should have to leave her in
the dining-room and go up to my bed without the consoling thought, as on
ordinary evenings, that she would come up, later, to kiss me.

"Now, M. Swann," she said, "do tell me about your daughter; I am sure
she shews a taste already for nice things, like her papa."

"Come along and sit down here with us all on