Swann's Way

world, namely, a natural air and an air of distinction. Ignorant of
architecture, she would say:

"My dears, laugh at me if you like; it is not conventionally beautiful,
but there is something in its quaint old face which pleases me. If it
could play the piano, I am sure it would really _play_." And when she
gazed on it, when her eyes followed the gentle tension, the fervent
inclination of its stony slopes which drew together as they rose, like
hands joined in prayer, she would absorb herself so utterly in the
outpouring of the spire that her gaze seemed to leap upwards with it;
her lips at the same time curving in a friendly smile for the worn old
stones of which the setting sun now illumined no more than the topmost
pinnacles, which, at the point where they entered that zone of sunlight
and were softened and sweetened by it, seemed to have mounted suddenly
far higher, to have become truly remote, like a song whose singer breaks
into falsetto, an octave above the accompanying air.

It was the steeple of Saint-Hilaire which shaped and crowned and
consecrated every occupation, every hour of the day, every point of view
in the town. From my bedroom window I could discern no more than its