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By Root 1660 0

to see my niece,” but: “I’ve been to see the brother,” “I just looked in to say good-day to the niece” (or “to my niece the butcheress”). As for her daughter, Françoise would have been glad to see her return to Combray. But the latter, who went in for abbreviations like a woman of fashion, though hers were of a vulgar kind, protested that the week she was shortly going to spend at Combray would seem quite long enough without so much as a sight of “the Intran.”7 She was even less willing to go to Françoise’s sister, who lived in a mountainous region, for “mountains aren’t really interesting,” said the daughter, giving to the adjective a new and terrible meaning. She could not make up her mind to go back to Méséglise, where “the people are so stupid,” where in the market the gossips at their stalls would claim cousinhood with her and say “Why, it’s never poor Bazireau’s daughter?” She would sooner die than go back and bury herself down there, now that she had “tasted the life of Paris,” and Françoise, traditionalist as she was, smiled complacently nevertheless at the spirit of innovation embodied in this new “Parisian” when she said: “Very well, mother, if you don’t get your day off, you’ve only to send me a wire.”

The weather had turned chilly again. “Go out? What for? To catch your death?” said Françoise, who preferred to remain in the house during the week which her daughter and brother and the butcher-niece had gone to spend at Combray. Being, moreover, the last adherent in whom survived obscurely the doctrine of my aunt Léonie in matters of natural philosophy, Françoise would add, speaking of this unseasonable weather: “It’s the remains of the wrath of God!” But I responded to her complaints only with a languid smile; all the more indifferent to these predictions in that whatever happened it would be fine for me; already, I could see the morning sun shining on the slope of Fiesole, and I warmed myself smilingly in its rays; their strength obliged me to half-open and half-shut my eyelids, which, like alabaster lamps, were filled with a roseate glow. It was not only the bells that came from Italy, Italy had come with them. My faithful hands would not lack flowers to honour the anniversary of the pilgrimage which I ought to have made long ago, for since, here in Paris, the weather had turned cold again as in another year at the time of our preparations for departure at the end of Lent, in the liquid, freezing air which bathed the chestnuts and planes on the boulevards and the tree in the courtyard of our house, the narcissi, the jonquils, the anemones of the Ponte Vecchio were already opening their petals as in a bowl of pure water.

My father had informed us that he now knew, through his friend A.J., where M. de Norpois went when he met him about the place.

“It’s to see Mme de Villeparisis. They’re great friends; I never knew anything about it. It seems she’s a delightful person, a most superior woman. You ought to go and call on her,” he told me. “Another thing that surprised me very much: he spoke to me of M. de Guermantes as a most distinguished man; I’d always taken him for a boor. It seems he knows an enormous amount, and has perfect taste, only he’s very proud of his name and his connexions. But as a matter of fact, according to Norpois, he has a tremendous position, not only here but all over Europe. It appears the Austrian Emperor and the Tsar treat him just like one of themselves. Old Norpois told me that Mme de Villeparisis had taken quite a fancy to you, and that you meet all sorts of interesting people in her house. He praised you very highly. You’ll see him if you go there, and he may have some good advice for you even if you are going to be a writer. For I can see you won’t do anything else. It might turn out quite a good career; it’s not what I should have chosen for you myself, but you’ll be a man in no time now, we shan’t always be here to look after you, and we mustn’t prevent you from following your vocation.”

If only I had been able to start writing! But, whatever the conditions in which I approached