Swann's Way

same terms:--_a large nose, blue eyes_, as Dr. Percepied had used when
describing in my presence the Duchesse de Guermantes, I said to myself:
"This lady is like the Duchesse de Guermantes." Now the chapel from
which she was following the service was that of Gilbert the Bad; beneath
its flat tombstones, yellowed and bulging like cells of honey in a comb,
rested the bones of the old Counts of Brabant; and I remembered having
heard it said that this chapel was reserved for the Guermantes family,
whenever any of its members came to attend a ceremony 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 account 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