The second volume of In Search of Lost Time, Within a Budding Grove follows the narrator as he moves from adolescent longing toward a more self-aware youth during his stay at Balbec. Seaside landscapes, Swann family society, and encounters with Elstir gradually shape the novel's reflections on memory, desire, and art.

A summer by the sea, the noise of society, and the tremor of memory shape a young man's sensibility.