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Proust, Marcel, 1871-1922

"Swann's Way"

It's attractive; I like that
street; it's so sombre."
"Indeed it isn't. You can't have been in it for a long time; it's not at
all sombre now; they're beginning to build all round there."
When Swann did finally introduce M. de Froberville to the young Mme. de
Cambremer, since it was the first time that she had heard the General's
name, she hastily outlined upon her lips the smile of joy and surprise
with which she would have greeted him if she had never, in the whole of
her life, heard anything else; for, as she did not yet know all the
friends of her new family, whenever anyone was presented to her, she
assumed that he must be one of them, and thinking that she would shew her
tact by appearing to have heard 'such a lot about him' since her marriage,
she would hold out her hand with an air of hesitation which was meant as a
proof at once of the inculcated reserve which she had to overcome and of
the spontaneous friendliness which successfully overcame it. And so her
parents-in-law, whom she still regarded as the most eminent pair in
France, declared that she was an angel; all the more that they preferred
to appear, in marrying her to their son, to have yielded to the attraction
rather of her natural charm than of her considerable fortune.


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