Swann's Way

face with its brown and wrinkled cheeks, which with age had acquired
almost the purple hue of tilled fields in autumn, covered, if she were
walking abroad, by a half-lifted veil, while upon them either the
cold or some sad reflection invariably left the drying traces of an
involuntary tear.

My sole consolation when I went upstairs for the night was that Mamma
would come in and kiss me after I was in bed. But this good night lasted
for so short a time: she went down again so soon that the moment in
which I heard her climb the stairs, and then caught the sound of her
garden dress of blue muslin, from which hung little tassels of plaited
straw, rustling along the double-doored corridor, was for me a moment
of the keenest sorrow. So much did I love that good night that I reached
the stage of hoping that it would come as late as possible, so as
to prolong the time of respite during which Mamma would not yet have
appeared. Sometimes when, after kissing me, she opened the door to go, I
longed to call her back, to say to her "Kiss me just once again," but
I knew that then she would at once look displeased, for the concession
which she made to my wretchedness and agitation in coming up to me with