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at the corner of the street which I am to take, my memory
need only find in it some dim resemblance to that dear and
vanished outline, and the passer-by, should he turn round
to make sure that I have not gone astray, would see me, to
his astonishment, oblivious of the walk that I had planned
to take or the place where I was obliged to call, standing still
on the spot, before that steeple, for hours on end, motion-
less, trying to remember, feeling deep within myself a tract
of soil reclaimed from the waters of Lethe slowly drying un-
til the buildings rise on it again; and then no doubt, and
then more uneasily than when, just now, I asked him for
a direction, I will seek my way again, I will turn a corner...
but... the goal is in my heart...
On our way home from mass we would often meet M.
Legrandin, who, detained in Paris by his professional du-
ties as an engineer, could only (except in the regular holiday
seasons) visit his home at Combray between Saturday eve-
nings and Monday mornings. He was one of that class of
men who, apart from a scientific career in which they may
well have proved brilliantly successful, have acquired an en-
tirely different kind of culture, literary or artistic, of which
they make no use in the specialised work of their profession,
but by which their conversation profits. More ‘literary’ than
many ‘men of letters’ (we were not aware at this period that
M. Legrandin had a distinct reputation as a writer, and so
were greatly astonished to find that a well-known composer
had set some verses of his to music), endowed with a great-
er ease in execution than many painters, they imagine that
the life they are obliged to lead is not that for which they

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