And now, on a particular social occasion in the novel, he's introduced to Bergotte at a gathering in the Faubourg Saint Germain erm and he's shocked at what seems to be the gap between the man who faces him and the author whose works he has so admired, and he writes, ‘My greeting was returned by a youthful, uncouth, small, thickset, shortsighted person, with a red nose, curled like a snail's shell, and a black tuft on his chin.