Gilberte

     The absence of Mlle Swann, which—since it preserved me from the terrible risk of seeing her appear on one of the paths, and of being identified and scorned by this privileged little girl who had Bergotte for a friend and used to go with him to visit cathedrals—made the exploration of Tansonville, now for the first time permissible, a matter of indifference to myself, seemed on the contrary to invest the property, in my grandfather's and my father's eyes, with an added attraction, a transient charm, and (like an entirely cloudless sky when one is going mountaineering) to make the day exceptionally propitious for a walk around it; I should have liked to see their reckoning proved false, to see, by a miracle, Mlle Swann appear with her father, so close to us that we should not have time to avoid her, and should therefore be obliged to make her acquaintance.

     "Are there any books in which Bergotte has written about Berma?" I asked M. Swann.
     "I think he has, in that little essay on Racine, but it must be out of print. Still, perhaps there has been a second impression. I'll find out. In fact I can ask Bergotte himself all you want to know next time he comes to dine with us. He never misses a week, from one year's end to another. He's my daughter's greatest friend. They go and look at old towns and cathedrals and castles together."