And so even to-day in any
large provincial town, or in a quarter of Paris which I do not know well,
if a passer-by who is 'putting me on the right road' shews me from afar,
as a point to aim at, some belfry of a hospital, or a convent steeple
lifting the peak of its ecclesiastical cap at the corner of the street
which I am to take, my memory need only find in it some dim resemblance to
that dear and vanished outline, and the passer-by, should he turn round to
make sure that I have not gone astray, would see me, to his astonishment,
oblivious of the walk that I had planned to take or the place where I was
obliged to call, standing still on the spot, before that steeple, for
hours on end, motionless, trying to remember, feeling deep within myself a
tract of soil reclaimed from the waters of Lethe slowly drying until the
buildings rise on it again; and then no doubt, and then more uneasily than
when, just now, I asked him for a direction, I will seek my way again, I
will turn a corner... but... the goal is in my heart...
On our way home from mass we would often meet M. Legrandin, who, detained
in Paris by his professional duties as an engineer, could only (except in
the regular holiday seasons) visit his home at Combray between Saturday
evenings and Monday mornings.
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