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at Combray; there was, indeed, but one woman resembling
the portrait of Mme. de Guermantes who on that day, the
very day on which she was expected to come there, could
be sitting in that chapel: it was she! My disappointment was
immense. It arose from my not having borne in mind, when
I thought of Mme. de Guermantes, that I was picturing her
to myself in the colours of a tapestry or a painted window,
as living in another century, as being of another substance
than the rest of the human race. Never had I taken into ac-
count that she might have a red face, a mauve scarf like
Mme. Sazerat; and the oval curve of her cheeks reminded
me so strongly of people whom I had seen at home that the
suspicion brushed against my mind (though it was imme-
diately banished) that this lady in her creative principle,
in the molecules of her physical composition, was perhaps
not substantially the Duchesse de Guermantes, but that her
body, in ignorance of the name that people had given it, be-
longed to a certain type of femininity which included, also,
the wives of doctors and tradesmen. ‘It is, it must be Mme.
de Guermantes, and no one else!’ were the words under-
lying the attentive and astonished expression with which I
was gazing upon this image, which, naturally enough, bore
no resemblance to those that had so often, under the same
title of ‘Mme. de Guermantes,’ appeared to me in dreams,
since this one had not been, like the others, formed arbi-
trarily by myself, but had sprung into sight for the first time,
only a moment ago, here in church; an image which was not
of the same nature, was not colourable at will, like those
others that allowed themselves to imbibe the orange tint of

270 Swann’s Way