Swann (whom I had
seen so often, long ago, without his having aroused my curiosity, when he
was still on good terms with my parents) came for Gilberte to the
Champs-Elysees, once the pulsations to which my heart had been excited by
the appearance of his grey hat and hooded cape had subsided, the sight of
him still impressed me as might that of an historic personage, upon whom
one had just been studying a series of books, and the smallest details of
whose life one learned with enthusiasm. His relations with the Comte de
Paris, which, when I heard them discussed at Combray, seemed to me
unimportant, became now in my eyes something marvellous, as if no one else
had ever known the House of Orleans; they set him in vivid detachment
against the vulgar background of pedestrians of different classes, who
encumbered that particular path in the Champs-Elysees, in the midst of
whom I admired his condescending to figure without claiming any special
deference, which as it happened none of them dreamed of paying him, so
profound was the incognito in which he was wrapped.
He responded politely to the salutations of Gilberte's companions, even to
mine, for all that he was no longer on good terms with my family, but
without appearing to know who I was.
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