Several of the works most characteristic of his various manners were scattered about the provinces. A certain house at Les Andelys, in which there was one of his finest landscapes, seemed to me as precious, gave me as keen a desire to go there and see it as did a village in the Chartres district, among whose millstone walls was enshrined a glorious painted window; and towards the possessor of this treasure, towards the man who, inside his ugly house, on the main street, closeted like an astrologer, sat questioning one of those mirrors of the world which Elstir’s pictures were, and who had perhaps bought it for many thousands of francs, I felt myself borne by that instinctive sympathy which joins the very hearts, the inmost natures of those who think alike upon a vital subject. Now three important works by my favourite painter were described in one of these articles as belonging to Mme. de Guermantes. So that it was, after all, quite sincerely that, on the evening on which Saint-Loup told me of his lady’s projected visit to Bruges, I was able, during dinner, in front of his friends, to let fall, as though on the spur of the moment: “Listen, if you don’t mind. Just one last word on the subject of the lady we were speaking about. You remember Elstir, the painter I met at Balbec?” “Why, of course I do.” “You remember how much I admired his work?” “I do, quite well; and the letter we sent him.” “Very well, one of the reasons—not one of the chief reasons, a subordinate reason—why I should like to meet the said lady—you do know who’ I mean, don’t you?” “Of course I do. How involved you’re getting.” “Is that she has in her house one very fine picture, at least, by Elstir.” “I say, I never knew that.” “Elstir will probably be at Balbec at Easter; you know he stays down there now all the year round, practically. I should very much like to have seen this picture before I leave Paris. I don’t know whether you’re on sufficiently intimate terms with your aunt: but couldn’t you manage, somehow, to give her so good an impression of me that she won’t refuse, and then ask her if she’ll let me come and see the picture without you, since you won’t be there?” “That’s all right. I’ll answer for her; I’ll make a special point of it.” “Oh, Robert, you are an angel; I do love you.” “It’s very nice of you to love me, but it would be equally nice if you were to call me _tu_, as you promised, and as you began to do.”