I want to go back in Swann's Way to the evening when the young hero risks displeasing his parents by tearfully begging his mother to kiss him goodnight on the staircase, in full view of his father. His tears won his parents' hearts and he is rewarded with his mother's affection.
"And thus for the first time my unhappiness was regarded no longer as a punishable offense but as an involuntary ailment which had been officially recognized, a nervous condition for which I was in no way responsible... I could weep henceforth without sin."
"It struck me that my mother had just made a first concession...a first abdication...for the first time she who was so brave had to confess herself beaten... I felt that I had with an impious and secret finger traced a first wrinkle upon her soul and brought out a first white hair on her head."
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