My aunt did not go to see the pink hawthorn in the hedge, but at all hours
of the day I would ask the rest of my family whether she was not going to
go, whether she used not, at one time, to go often to Tansonville, trying
to make them speak of Mile. Swann's parents and grandparents, who appeared
to me to be as great and glorious as gods. The name, which had for me
become almost mythological, of Swann--when I talked with my family I would
grow sick with longing to hear them utter it; I dared not pronounce it
myself, but I would draw them into a discussion of matters which led
naturally to Gilberte and her family, in which she was involved, in
speaking of which I would feel myself not too remotely banished from her
company; and I would suddenly force my father (by pretending, for
instance, to believe that my grandfather's business had been in our family
before his day, or that the hedge with the pink hawthorn which my aunt
Leonie wished to visit was on common ground) to correct my statements, to
say, as though in opposition to me and of his own accord: "No, no, the
business belonged to _Swann's_ father, that hedge is part of _Swann's_
park.
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