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Updated: May 6, 2025
For even if I had purchased it at Combray, having seen it outside Borange's, whose grocery lay too far from our house for Francoise to be able to deal there, as she did with Camus, but who enjoyed better custom as a stationer and bookseller; even if I had seen it, tied with string to keep it in its place in the mosaic of monthly parts and pamphlets which adorned either side of his doorway, a doorway more mysterious, more teeming with suggestion than that of a cathedral, I should have noticed and bought it there simply because I had recognised it as a book which had been well spoken of, in my hearing, by the school-master or the school-friend who, at that particular time, seemed to me to be entrusted with the secret of Truth and Beauty, things half-felt by me, half-incomprehensible, the full understanding of which was the vague but permanent object of my thoughts.
We would pass, in the Rue de l'Oiseau, before the old hostelry of the Oiseau Flesche, into whose great courtyard, once upon a time, would rumble the coaches of the Duchesses de Montpensier, de Guermantes, and de Montmorency, when they had to come down to Combray for some litigation with their farmers, or to receive homage from them.
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?
Mme. de Combray answered, and her letter was immediately given to Licquet, who, awaiting some definite information, was astonished to find himself confronted with a fresh mystery. "Let me know," said the Marquise, "how the horse went back; that no one saw it anywhere." What horse? What answer should he give?
Next day Mme. de Combray and Lefebre made five leagues from Evreux to Louviers; they got out before entering the town as the Marquise wished to avoid the Hôtel du Mouton where she was known. They went by side streets to the bridge of the Eure where they hired a carriage which took them by nightfall to the hamlet of Val-Tesson.
On this ground Lefebre found Mme. de Combray most conciliating, and he had neither to employ prayers nor entreaties, to obtain her promise to get the 60,000 francs from the Buquets; "she consented without any difficulty or adverse opinion; she seemed very zealous and pleased at the turn things had taken, and offered herself to take the money to Caen, and lodge it with Nourry, d'Aché's banker."
And he would still have been received at Combray but for one thing. But in the matter of Bergotte he had spoken truly. For the first few days, like a tune which will be running in one's head and maddening one soon enough, but of which one has not for the moment 'got hold, the things I was to love so passionately in Bergotte's style had not yet caught my eye.
Some pretended that d'Aché sent the manifesto to Mme. de Combray, and that it was clandestinely printed in the cellars at Tournebut; others maintain that towards March 15th Bonnoeil returned from Paris, bringing with him the correspondence of the secret royalist committee which was to be sent to the English Cabinet via Mandeville.
Lefebre, who was calmer, told her that he had left Mme. Acquet at Noron in a state of exhaustion, that they must wait until she was in a condition to travel before starting, and that it would be impossible to obtain a carriage at this time of night. But Mme. de Combray would listen to nothing; she gave her gardener three crowns to go to Noron and tell Mme.
A very rich woman, named Madame de Combray, who lived near Caen, allowed her chateau to be occupied by a band of royalists, who seemed to think they upheld their cause worthily by robbing diligences on the highway.
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