From his books I had formed an impression of Bergotte as a frail and
disappointed old man, who had lost his children, and had never found any
consolation. And so I would read, or rather sing his sentences in my
brain, 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 in the world 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 to attend the class at school called
'Philosophy.' I did not wish to learn or do anything else there, but
simply to exist and be guided entirely by the mind of Bergotte, and, if I
had been told then that the metaphysicians whom I was actually to follow
there resembled him in nothing, I should have been struck down by the
despair a young lover feels 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.
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