" my mother waited for me, gazing at the canal with a patience that she would never have shown before, in Combray, in the days when she invested in me hopes that had never been rewarded and wanted to hide from me the extent of her love for me. Now she clearly felt that a show of coldness would change nothing, and the affection which she lavished on me resembled the food that is no longer forbidden to a sick person when we realize that they have no chance of recovery. "

― Marcel Proust , La fugitiva