du Boulbon, who is quite an intelligent man.” “He is a great admirer of your books,” I replied. I saw that Bergotte knew this, and I decided that kindred spirits soon come together, that one has few really “unknown friends.” What Bergotte had said to me with respect to Cottard impressed me, While running contrary to everything that I myself believed. I was in no way disturbed by finding my doctor a bore; I expected of him that, thanks to an art the laws of which were beyond me, he should pronounce on the subject of my health an infallible oracle, after consultation of my entrails. And I did not at all require that, with the aid of an intellect, in which I easily outstripped him, he should seek to understand my intellect, which I pictured to myself merely as a means, of no importance in itself, of trying to attain to certain external verities. I doubted greatly whether intellectual people required a different form of hygiene from imbeciles, and I was quite prepared to submit myself to the latter kind. “I’ll tell you who does need a good doctor, and that is our friend Swann,” said Bergotte.