And he
would still have been received at Combray but for one thing. That same
night, after dinner, having informed me (a piece of news which had a great
influence on my later life, making it happier at one time and then more
unhappy) that no woman ever thought of anything but love, and that there
was not one of them whose resistance a man could not overcome, he had gone
on to assure me that he had heard it said on unimpeachable authority that
my great-aunt herself had led a 'gay' life in her younger days, and had
been notoriously 'kept.' I could not refrain from passing on so important
a piece of information to my parents; the next time Bloch called he was
not admitted, and afterwards, when I met him in the street, he greeted me
with extreme coldness.
But in the matter of Bergotte he had spoken truly.
For the first few days, like a tune which will be running in one's head
and maddening one soon enough, but of which one has not for the moment
'got hold,' the things I was to love so passionately in Bergotte's style
had not yet caught my eye. I could not, it is true, lay down the novel of
his which I was reading, but I fancied that I was interested in the story
alone, as in the first dawn of love, when we go every day to meet a woman
at some party or entertainment by the charm of which we imagine it is that
we are attracted.
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