of Paris which I do not know well, if a passer-by who is 'putting me on
the right road' shews me from afar, as a point to aim at, some belfry of
a hospital, or a convent steeple lifting the peak of its ecclesiastical
cap 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, motionless,
trying to remember, feeling deep within myself a tract of soil reclaimed
from the waters of Lethe slowly drying until 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 duties as an engineer, could
only (except in the regular holiday seasons) visit his home at Combray
between Saturday evenings 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 entirely 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 greater ease
in execution than many painters, they imagine that the life they are
obliged to lead is not that for which they are really fitted, and they
bring to their regular occupations either a fantastic indifference or
a sustained and lofty application, scornful, bitter, and conscientious.
Tall, with a good figure, a fine, thoughtful face, drooping fair
moustaches, a look of disillusionment in his blue eyes, an almost
exaggerated refinement of courtesy; a talker such as we had never heard;
he was in the sight of my family, who never ceased to quote him as an
example, the very pattern of a gentleman, who took life in the noblest
and most delicate manner. My grandmot