think of the hours of anguish which I should have to spend, that
evening, alone in my room, without the possibility of going to sleep: I
tried to convince myself that they were of no importance, really, since
I should have forgotten them next morning, and to fix my mind on
thoughts of the future which would carry me, as on a bridge, across the
terrifying abyss that yawned at my feet. But my mind, strained by this
foreboding, distended like the look which I shot at my mother, would not
allow any other impression to enter. Thoughts did, indeed, enter it, but
only on the condition that they left behind them every element of
beauty, or even of quaintness, by which I might have been distracted or
beguiled. As a surgical patient, by means of a local anaesthetic, can
look on with a clear consciousness while an operation is being performed
upon him and yet feel nothing, I could repeat to myself some favourite
lines, or watch my grandfather attempting to talk to Swann about the Duc
d'Audriffet-Pasquier, without being able to kindle any emotion from one
or amusement from the other. Hardly had my grandfather begun to question
Swann about that orator when one of my grandmother's sisters, in whose
ears the question echoed like a solemn but untimely silence which her
natural politeness bade her interrupt, addressed the other with:

"Just fancy, Flora, I met a young Swedish governess to-day who told me
some most interesting things about the co-operative movement in
Scandinavia. We really must have her to dine here one evening."

"To be sure!" said her sister Flora, "but I haven't wasted my time either.
I met such a clever old gentleman at M. Vinteuil's who knows Maubant quite
well, and Maubant has told him every little thing about how he gets up his
parts. It is the most interesting thing I ever heard. He is a neighbour of
M. Vinteuil's, and I never knew; and he is so nice besides."