Swann's Way

her open coach, as proud as Artaban, on her way to Roussainville market.
I supposed that it must be Mme. Octave who had given it to her."

So on by degrees, until Françoise and my aunt, the quarry and the
hunter, could never cease from trying to forestall each other's devices.
My mother was afraid lest Françoise should develop a genuine hatred of
my aunt, who was doing everything in her power to annoy her. However
that might be, Françoise had come, more and more, to pay an infinitely
scrupulous attention to my aunt's least word and gesture. When she had
to ask her for anything she would hesitate, first, for a long time,
making up her mind how best to begin. And when she had uttered her
request, she would watch my aunt covertly, trying to guess from the
expression on her face what she thought of it, and how she would reply.
And in this way--whereas an artist who had been reading memoirs of the
seventeenth century, and wished to bring himself nearer to the great
Louis, would consider that he was making progress in that direction when
he constructed a pedigree that traced his own descent from some historic
family, or when he engaged in correspondence with one of the reigning