Swann's Way

minutes after leaving the house, by a foot-bridge called the Pont-Vieux.
And every year, when we arrived at Combray, on Easter morning, after the
sermon, if the weather was fine, I would run there to see (amid all the
disorder that prevails on the morning of a great festival, the gorgeous
preparations for which make the everyday household utensils that they
have not contrived to banish seem more sordid than ever) the river
flowing past, sky-blue already between banks still black and bare, its
only companions a clump of daffodils, come out before their time, a few
primroses, the first in flower, while here and there burned the blue
flame of a violet, its stem bent beneath the weight of the drop of
perfume stored in its tiny horn. The Pont-Vieux led to a tow-path which,
at this point, would be overhung in summer by the bluish foliage of a
hazel, under which a fisherman in a straw hat seemed to have taken
root. At Combray, where I knew everyone, and could always detect the
blacksmith or grocer's boy through his disguise of a beadle's uniform
or chorister's surplice, this fisherman was the only person whom I was
never able to identify. He must have known my family, for he used to