Our hero's first encounter with Gilberte Swann in the garden at Tansonville amid the hawthorn blossoms is ruined by what he misinterprets as a smile of scorn for him: "...a half-hidden smile which I could only interpret...as a mark of infinite contempt."
In a telling precursor to his relationship with women throughout the novel, our hero is tormented.
"I loved her; I was sorry not to have had the time and the inspiration to insult her, to hurt her, to force her to keep some memory of me. I thought her so beautiful that I should have liked to be able to retrace my steps so as to shake my fist at her and shout, 'I think you're hideous, grotesque; how I loathe you!'"
When Gilberte is called by her mother to come into the house, Proust calls her "the lady in white." (As opposed to the lady in pink at Uncle Adolphe's house. But we are not supposed to make these associations just yet.)
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