It was in fact that “landing” of the Cambremers at the hotel which my grandmother had so greatly dreaded long ago when she wanted us not to let Legrandin know that we might perhaps be going to Balbec. Then Mamma used to laugh at these fears inspired by an event which she considered impossible. And here it was actually happening, but by different channels and without Legrandin’s having had any part in it. “Do you mind my staying here, if I shan’t be in your way?” asked Albertine (in whose eyes there lingered, brought there by the cruel things I had just been saying to her, a pair of tears which I observed without seeming to see them, but not without rejoicing inwardly at the sight), “there is something I want to say to you.” A hat with feathers, itself surmounted by a sapphire pin, was perched haphazard upon