" And ii the sequel, by the cordiality
with which the Princess thanked him, hi had been able to judge of the
flavour of the strawberries and of the ripe ness of the pears. But, most
of all, that "every fruit visited and examinee one by one, by myself" had
brought balm to his sufferings by carrying hi mind off to a region which
he rarely visited, although it was his by right, as the heir of a rich and
respectable middle-class family in which had been handed down from
generation to generation the knowledge of the 'right places' and the art
of ordering things from shops.
Of a truth, he had too long forgotten that he was 'young Swann' not to
feel, when he assumed that part again for a moment, a keener pleasure than
he was capable of feeling at other times--when, indeed, he was grown sick
of pleasure; and if the friendliness of the middle-class people, for whom
he had never been anything else than 'young Swann,' was less animated than
that of the aristocrats (though more flattering, for all that, since in
the middle-class mind friendship is inseparable from respect), no letter
from a Royal Personage, offering him some princely entertainment, could
ever be so attractive to Swann as the letter which asked him to be a
witness, or merely to be present at a wedding in the family of some old
friends of his parents; some of whom had 'kept up' with him, like my
grandfather, who, the year before these events, had invited him to my
mother's wedding, while others barely knew him by sight, but were, they
thought, in duty bound to shew civility to the son, to the worthy
successor of the late M.
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