In Search of Lost Time, Volume I_ Swann's Way - Marcel Proust [67]
A little tap on the window-pane, as though something had struck it, followed by a plentiful light falling sound, as of grains of sand being sprinkled from a window overhead, gradually spreading, intensifying, acquiring a regular rhythm, becoming fluid, sonorous, musical, immeasurable, universal: it was the rain.
“There, Françoise, what did I tell you? How it’s coming down! But I think I heard the bell at the garden gate: go along and see who can be outside in this weather.”
Françoise went and returned. “It’s Mme Amédée” (my grandmother). “She said she was going for a walk. And yet it’s raining hard.”
“I’m not at all surprised,” said my aunt, raising her eyes to the heavens. “I’ve always said that she was not in the least like other people. Well, I’m glad it’s she and not myself who’s outside in all this.”
“Mme Amédée is always the exact opposite of everyone else,” said Françoise, not unkindly, refraining until she should be alone with the other servants from stating her belief that my grandmother was “slightly batty.”
“There’s Benediction over! Eulalie will never come now,” sighed my aunt. “It will be the weather that’s frightened her away.”
“But it’s not five o’clock yet, Mme Octave, it’s only half-past four.”
“Only half-past four! And here am I, obliged to draw back the curtains just to get a tiny streak of daylight. At half-past four! Only a week before the Rogation-days. Ah, my poor Françoise, the good Lord must be sorely vexed with us. The world is going too far these days. As my poor Octave used to say, we have forgotten God too often, and he is taking his revenge.”
A bright flush animated my aunt’s cheeks; it was Eulalie. As ill luck would have it, scarcely had she been admitted to the presence when Françoise reappeared and, with a smile that was meant to indicate her full participation in the pleasure which, she had no doubt, her tidings would give my aunt, articulating each syllable so as to show that, in spite of her having to translate them into indirect speech, she was repeating, as a good servant should, the very words which the new visitor had condescended to use, said: “His reverence the Curé would be delighted, enchanted, if Mme Octave is not resting just now, and could see him. His reverence don’t wish to disturb Mme Octave. His reverence is downstairs; I told him to go into the parlour.”
Had the truth been known, the Curé’s visits gave my aunt no such ecstatic pleasure as Françoise supposed, and the air of jubilation with which she felt bound to illuminate her face whenever she had to announce his arrival did not altogether correspond to the sentiments of her invalid. The Curé (an excellent man, with whom I now regret not having conversed more often, for, even if he cared nothing for the arts, he knew a great many etymologies), being in the habit of showing distinguished visitors over his church (he had even planned to compile a history of the Parish of Combray), used to weary her with his endless commentaries which, incidentally, never varied in the least degree. But when his visit synchronised exactly with Eulalie’s it became frankly distasteful to my aunt. She would have preferred to make the most of Eulalie, and not to have the whole of her circle about her at one time. But she dared not send the Curé away, and had to content herself with making a sign to Eulalie