Nevertheless, he does see her, and delivers the bad news that "this seems a hopeless case to me." I'm dining with the minister of commerce." And he's far more concerned that the tailcoat he has to wear "has no buttonhole for my decorations," than with the state of the narrator's grandmother. He tells the narrator, "that is unthinkable. Nevertheless, the account of the grandmother's last days is leavened with humor, some of it embodied in "the famous Professor E-," a physician whom the narrator encounters on the street and whom he asks to help his grandmother. We make a point of telling ourselves that death can come at any moment, but when we do so we think of that moment as something vague and distant, not as something that can have anything to do with the day that has already begun or might mean that death - or the first signs of its partial possession of us, after which it will never loosen its hold again - will occur this very afternoon, the almost inevitable afternoon, with its hourly activities prescribed in advance. Grandmother's fatal illness, which we learn is uremia, brings the narrator's thoughts on illness and death to the forefront. " Well, it's not like In Search of Lost Time is one of those books for which you want to avoid "spoilers." _ Suddenly, in the middle of the third volume, Proust has decided to break the narrative into chapters and provide a synopsis at the start of each chapter: " My grandmother's illness - Bergotte's illness - The Duc and the doctor - My grandmother's decline - Her death.
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