And Francoise would rouse me with: "What's wrong with you now,
child?" and we would continue on our way until we reached their gate,
where a porter, different from every other porter in the world, and
saturated, even to the braid on his livery, with the same melancholy charm
that I had felt to be latent in the name of Gilberte, looked at me as
though he knew that I was one of those whose natural unworthiness would
for ever prevent them from penetrating into the mysteries of the life
inside, which it was his duty to guard, and over which the ground-floor
windows appeared conscious of being protectingly closed, with far less
resemblance, between the nobly sweeping arches of their muslin curtains,
to any other windows in the world than to Gilberte's glancing eyes. On
other days we would go along the boulevards, and I would post myself at
the corner of the Rue Duphot; I had heard that Swann was often to be seen
passing there, on his way to the dentist's; and my imagination so far
differentiated Gilberte's father from the rest of humanity, his presence
in the midst of a crowd of real people introduced among them so miraculous
an element, that even before we reached the Madeleine I would be trembling
with emotion at the thought that I was approaching a street from which
that supernatural apparition might at any moment burst upon me unawares.
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