Swann's Way

lime-trees, and its pavement glistening beneath the moon.

Suddenly my father would bring us to a standstill and ask my
mother--"Where are we?" Utterly worn out by the walk but still proud of
her husband, she would lovingly confess that she had not the least
idea. He would shrug his shoulders and laugh. And then, as though it had
slipped, with his latchkey, from his waistcoat pocket, he would point
out to us, when it stood before our eyes, the back-gate of our own
garden, which had come hand-in-hand with the familiar corner of the Rue
du Saint-Esprit, to await us, to greet us at the end of our wanderings
over paths unknown. My mother would murmur admiringly "You really are
wonderful!" And from that instant I had not to take another step; the
ground moved forward under my feet in that garden where, for so long,
my actions had ceased to require any control, or even attention, from my
will. Custom came to take me in her arms, carried me all the way up to
my bed, and laid me down there like a little child.

Although Saturday, by beginning an hour earlier, and by depriving her
of the services of Françoise, passed more slowly than other days for my
aunt, yet, the moment it was past, and a new week begun, she would look