Swann's Way

which one sits hoping that in the world outside it is raining or
snowing, hoping almost for a catastrophic deluge to add the romance of
shelter and security to the comfort of a snug retreat; I would turn to
and fro between the prayer-desk and the stamped velvet armchairs, each
one always draped in its crocheted antimacassar, while the fire, baking
like a pie the appetising smells with which the air of the room was
thickly clotted, which the dewy and sunny freshness of the morning had
already 'raised' and started to 'set,' puffed them and glazed them and
fluted them and swelled them into an invisible though not impalpable
country cake, an immense puff-pastry, in which, barely waiting to savour
the crustier, more delicate, more respectable, but also drier smells
of the cupboard, the chest-of-drawers, and the patterned wall-paper
I always returned with an unconfessed gluttony to bury myself in the
nondescript, resinous, dull, indigestible, and fruity smell of the
flowered quilt.

In the next room I could hear my aunt talking quietly to herself. She
never spoke save in low tones, because she believed that there was
something broken in her head and floating loose there, which she might