Reading Proust - A Running Commentary

 In the second chapter of Combray (or the only chapter called Combray in the Scott Moncrieff (SM) and Kilmartin (TK) editions, their having called the first chapter Overture instead), we are introduced to a number of  characters, mainly local and of varying degrees of importance such as Aunt Léonie, M. Legrandin, Uncle Adolphe, the Lady in Pink, Bloch, M. Vinteuil, Gilberte, and Mme de Guermantes, and also to places and things which figure largely in Marcel's mind such as the church of Saint Hilaire, Swann's Way (also referred to as the Méséglise Way), the Guermantes Way and hawthorn blossom. Proust animates each brilliantly by a variety of techniques. Even buildings such as the church spring to life: "the worn old stones of [its spire] the setting sun now illumined no more than the topmost pinnacles, which, at the point where they entered that zone of sunlight and were softened and sweetened by it, seemed to have mounted suddenly far higher, to have become truly remot...