Certainly, with that face of his from which, under the influence of his disease, whole segments had vanished, as when a block of ice melts and whole slabs of it fall off, he had of course "changed." But I could not help being struck by the much greater extent to which he had changed in relation to myself. Admirable and cultivated though he was, a man I was anything but bored to meet, I could not for the life of me understand how I had been able to invest him long ago with such mystery that his appearance in the Champs-Elysees in his silk-lined cape would make my heart beat to the point where I was ashamed to approach him, and that at the door of the flat where such a being dwelt I could not ring the bell without being overcome with boundless agitation and alarm. All this had vanished not only from his house but from his person, and the idea of talking to him might or might not be agreeable to me, but had no effect whatever upon my nervous system.
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plains, p. 716
Proust reflects on how he views Swann differently, not simply because of the ravages of cancer, but also because of the ravages of time.
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