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By Root 1221 0

like a cook who, for once having no dinner to prepare for other people, at last has the time to enjoy his food. When, one day, I came across in a book by Bergotte some joke about an old family servant which the writer’s solemn and magnificent prose made even more comical, but which was in principle the same joke I had often made to my grandmother about Françoise, and when, another time, I discovered that he considered not unworthy of reflection in one of those mirrors of absolute truth which were his writings a remark similar to one which I had had occasion to make about our friend M. Legrandin (and moreover my remarks on Françoise and M. Legrandin were among those which I would most resolutely have sacrificed for Bergotte’s sake, in the belief that he would find them quite without interest), then it was suddenly revealed to me that my own humble existence and the realms of the true were less widely separated than I had supposed, that at certain points they actually coincided, and in my newfound confidence and joy I had wept upon his printed page as in the arms of a long-lost father.

From his books I had formed an impression of Bergotte as a frail and disappointed old man, who had lost some of his children and had never got over the loss. And so I would read, or rather sing his sentences in my mind, with rather more dolce, rather more lento than he himself had perhaps intended, and his simplest phrase would strike my ears with something peculiarly gentle and loving in its intonation. More than anything else I cherished his philosophy, and had pledged myself to it in lifelong devotion. It made me impatient to reach the age when I should be eligible for the class at school called “Philosophy.” But I did not wish to do anything else there but exist and be guided exclusively by the mind of Bergotte, and if I had been told then that the metaphysicians to whom I was actually to become attached there would resemble him in nothing, I should have been struck down by the despair of a young lover who has sworn lifelong fidelity, when a friend speaks to him of the other mistresses he will have in time to come.

One Sunday, while I was reading in the garden, I was interrupted by Swann, who had come to call upon my parents.

“What are you reading? May I look? Why, it’s Bergotte! Who has been telling you about him?”

I said it was Bloch.

“Oh, yes, that boy I saw here once, who looks so like the Bellini portrait of Mahomet II. It’s an astonishing likeness; he has the same arched eyebrows and hooked nose and prominent cheekbones. When he has a little beard he’ll be Mahomet himself. Anyhow, he has good taste, for Bergotte is a delightful soul.” And seeing how much I seemed to admire Bergotte, Swann, who never spoke at all about the people he knew, made an exception in my favour and said: “I know him well. If you would like him to write a few words on the title-page of your book I could ask him for you.”

I dared not accept such an offer, but bombarded Swann with questions about his friend. “Can you tell me, please, who is his favourite actor?”

“Actor? No, I can’t say. But I do know this: there’s not a man on the stage whom he thinks equal to Berma—he puts her above everyone. Have you seen her?”

“No, sir, my parents don’t allow me to go to the theatre.”

“That’s a pity. You should insist. Berma in Phèdre, in the Cid; she’s only an actress, if you like, but you know I don’t believe very much in the ‘hierarchy’ of the arts.” (As he spoke I noticed, what had often struck me before in his conversations with my grandmother’s sisters, that whenever he spoke of serious matters, whenever he used an expression which seemed to imply a definite opinion upon some important subject, he would take care to isolate, to sterilise it by using a special intonation, mechanical and ironic, as though he had put the phrase or word between inverted commas, and was anxious to disclaim any personal responsibility for it; as who should say “the ‘hierarchy,’ don’t you know, as silly people call it.” But then, if it was so absurd, why did he use the word?) A moment