Swann's Way

her mind, the desire to accelerate the digestion of her Vichy water was
of infinitely greater importance than her fear of seeing Mme. Goupil's
new dress ruined.

"Very likely."

"And you know that when it rains in the Square there's none too much
shelter." Suddenly my aunt turned pale. "What, three o'clock!" she
exclaimed. "But vespers will have begun already, and I've forgotten my
pepsin! Now I know why that Vichy water has been lying on my stomach."
And falling precipitately upon a prayer-book bound in purple velvet,
with gilt clasps, out of which in her haste she let fall a shower of
the little pictures, each in a lace fringe of yellowish paper, which she
used to mark the places of the greater feasts of the church, my aunt,
while she swallowed her drops, began at full speed to mutter the words
of the sacred text, its meaning being slightly clouded in her brain by
the uncertainty whether the pepsin, when taken so long after the
Vichy, would still be able to overtake it and to 'send it down.' "Three
o'clock! It's unbelievable how time flies."

A little tap at the window, as though some missile had struck it,
followed by a plentiful, falling sound, as light, though, as if a shower