of Albertine that she had never known a person of such “perfidity,” who was so skilful at “drawing my money” by play-acting (which Françoise, who was as prone to mistake the particular for the general as the general for the particular and who had but a very vague idea of the various forms of dramatic art, called “acting a pantomime”). Perhaps I was myself to some extent responsible for this misconception as to the true nature of the life led by Albertine and myself, owing to the vague confirmations of it which, when I was talking to Françoise, I cunningly let fall, from a desire either to tease her or to appear, if not loved, at any rate happy. And yet it did not take her long to detect my jealousy and the watch I kept over Albertine (which I would have given anything for Françoise not to be aware of), guided, like a thought-reader who finds a hidden object while blindfolded, by that intuition which she possessed for anything that might be painful to me, which would not allow itself to be turned aside by any lies that I might tell in the hope of putting her off the scent, and also by that clairvoyant hatred which drove her—even more than it drove her to believe her enemies more prosperous, more cunning play-actresses than they really were—to uncover what might prove their undoing and precipitate their downfall. Françoise certainly never made any scenes with Albertine. But I knew her skill in the art of insinuation, the way she knew how to make the most of the implications of a particular situation, and I cannot believe that she resisted the temptation to let Albertine know, day after day, what a humiliating role she was playing in the household, to madden her by a slyly exaggerated portrayal of the confinement to which she was subjected. On one occasion I found Françoise, armed with a huge pair of spectacles, rummaging through my papers and replacing among them a sheet on which I had jotted down a story about Swann and his inability to do without Odette. Had she maliciously left it lying in Albertine’s room? Besides, above all Françoise’s innuendoes, which had merely been the muttering and perfidious accompaniment of it in the bass, it is probable that there must have risen, louder, clearer, more insistent, the accusing and calumnious voice of the Verdurins, irritated to see that Albertine was involuntarily keeping me and that I was voluntarily keeping her away from the little clan.
As for the money that I spent on Albertine, it was almost impossible for me to conceal it from Françoise, since I was unable to conceal any of my expenditure from her. Françoise had few faults, but those faults had created in her, for their own purposes, positive talents which she often lacked apart from the exercise of those faults. The principal one was her curiosity as to all money spent by us upon people other than herself. If I had a bill to pay or a tip to give, it was useless my going into a corner, she would find a plate to be put in the right place, a napkin to be picked up, which would give her an excuse for approaching. And however short a time I allowed her before dismissing her with fury, this woman who had almost lost her sight, who could scarcely count, guided by the same expert sense whereby a tailor, on catching sight of you, instinctively calculates the price of the stuff of which your coat is made, and indeed cannot resist fingering it, or a painter is immediately responsive to a colour effect, Françoise furtively glimpsed and instantaneously calculated the amount that I was giving. If, in order that she should not tell Albertine that I was corrupting her chauffeur, I tried to forestall her and, apologising for the tip, said: “I wanted to be generous to the chauffeur, so I gave him ten francs,” Françoise, for whom the merciless glance of an old and almost blind eagle had sufficed, would reply: “No no, Monsieur gave him a tip of 43 francs. He told Monsieur that the charge was 45 francs, Monsieur gave him 100 francs, and he handed back only 12 francs.” She had had time to see and to reckon the amount of the gratuity which I