Page 104 - swanns-way

Théodore a hand; the rest of her time she spent in visiting
sick persons like my aunt Léonie, to whom she would re-
late everything that had occurred at mass or vespers. She
was not above adding occasional pocket-money to the little
income which was found for her by the family of her old
employers by going from time to time to look after the Cu-
ré’s linen, or that of some other person of note in the clerical
world of Combray. Above a mantle of black cloth she wore
a little white coif that seemed almost to attach her to some
Order, and an infirmity of the skin had stained part of her
cheeks and her crooked nose the bright red colour of bal-
sam. Her visits were the one great distraction in the life of
my aunt Léonie, who now saw hardly anyone else, except
the reverend Curé. My aunt had by degrees erased every
other visitor’s name from her list, because they all commit-
ted the fatal error, in her eyes, of falling into one or other of
the two categories of people she most detested. One group,
the worse of the two, and the one of which she rid herself
first, consisted of those who advised her not to take so much
care of herself, and preached (even if only negatively and
with no outward signs beyond an occasional disapprov-
ing silence or doubting smile) the subversive doctrine that
a sharp walk in the sun and a good red beefsteak would do
her more good (her, who had had two dreadful sips of Vi-
chy water on her stomach for fourteen hours!) than all her
medicine bottles and her bed. The other category was com-
posed of people who appeared to believe that she was more
seriously ill than she thought, in fact that she was as seri-
ously ill as she said. And so none of those whom she had

104 Swann’s Way