Swann's Way

Sazerin.

"I do not ask to live to a hundred," my aunt would say, for she
preferred to have no definite limit fixed to the number of her days.

And since, besides this, Eulalie knew, as no one else knew, how to
distract my aunt without tiring her, her visits, which took place
regularly every Sunday, unless something unforeseen occurred to prevent
them, were for my aunt a pleasure the prospect of which kept her on
those days in a state of expectation, appetising enough to begin with,
but at once changing to the agony of a hunger too long unsatisfied if
Eulalie were a minute late in coming. For, if unduly prolonged, the
rapture of waiting for Eulalie became a torture, and my aunt would never
cease from looking at the time, and yawning, and complaining of each of
her symptoms in turn. Eulalie's ring, if it sounded from the front door
at the very end of the day, when she was no longer expecting it, would
almost make her ill. For the fact was that on Sundays she thought of
nothing else than this visit, and the moment that our luncheon was ended
Françoise would become impatient for us to leave the dining-room so that
she might go upstairs to 'occupy' my aunt. But--and this more than ever