m we knew only by sight, my father had saluted him in
a manner at once friendly and reserved, without stopping in his walk; M.
Legrandin had barely acknowledged the courtesy, and then with an air of
surprise, as though he had not recognised us, and with that distant look
characteristic of people who do not wish to be agreeable, and who from
the suddenly receding depths of their eyes seem to have caught sight of
you at the far end of an interminably straight road, and at so great
a distance that they content themselves with directing towards you
an almost imperceptible movement of the head, in proportion to your
doll-like dimensions.

Now, the lady who was walking with Legrandin was a model of virtue,
known and highly respected; there could be no question of his being
out for amorous adventure, and annoyed at being detected; and my father
asked himself how he could possibly have displeased our friend.

"I should be all the more sorry to feel that he was angry with us," he
said, "because among all those people in their Sunday clothes there
is something about him, with his little cut-away coat and his soft
neckties, so little 'dressed-up,' so genuinely simple; an air of
innocence, almost, which is really attractive."

But the vote of the family council was unanimous, that my father had
imagined the whole thing, or that Legrandin, at the moment in question,
had been preoccupied in thinking about something else. Anyhow, my
father's fears were dissipated no later than the following evening.
As we returned from a long walk we saw, near the Pont-Vieux, Legrandin
himself, who, on account of the holidays, was spending a few days more
in Combray. He came up to us with outstretched hand: "Do you know,
master book-lover," he asked me, "this line of Paul Desjardins?

Now are the woods all black, but still the sky is blue.

Is not that a fine rendering of a moment like this? Perhaps you have
never read Paul Desjardins. Read him, my boy, read him; in these days he
is converted, they tell me, into a preaching friar, but he used to have
the most charming water-colour touch--

Now are the woods all black, but still the sky is blue.

May you always see a blue sky overhead, my young friend; and then, even
when the time comes, which is coming now for me, when the woods are all
black, when night is fast falling, you will be able to console yourself,
as I am doing, by looking up to the sky." He took a cigarette from
his pocket and s