Swann's Way

points of a crown of thorns--or the beads of a rosary, and she would say
to me: "Now, my poor child, you must go away; go and get ready for
mass; and if you see Françoise downstairs, tell her not to stay too
long amusing herself with you; she must come up soon to see if I want
anything."

Françoise, who had been for many years in my aunt's service and did not
at that time suspect that she would one day be transferred entirely to
ours, was a little inclined to desert my aunt during the months which we
spent in her house. There had been in my infancy, before we first went
to Combray, and when my aunt Léonie used still to spend the winter in
Paris with her mother, a time when I knew Françoise so little that on
New Year's Day, before going into my great-aunt's house, my mother put
a five-franc piece in my hand and said: "Now, be careful. Don't make
any mistake. Wait until you hear me say 'Good morning, Françoise,' and
I touch your arm before you give it to her." No sooner had we arrived
in my aunt's dark hall than we saw in the gloom, beneath the frills of a
snowy cap as stiff and fragile as if it had been made of spun sugar, the
concentric waves of a smile of anticipatory gratitude. It was Françoise,