Page 107 - swanns-way

our table, beside the ‘holy bread,’ which too had come in, af-
ter church, in its familiar way; and we would still be found
seated in front of our Arabian Nights plates, weighed down
by the heat of the day, and even more by our heavy meal. For
upon the permanent foundation of eggs, cutlets, potatoes,
preserves, and biscuits, whose appearance on the table she
no longer announced to us, Françoise would add—as the la-
bour of fields and orchards, the harvest of the tides, the luck
of the markets, the kindness of neighbours, and her own
genius might provide; and so effectively that our bill of fare,
like the quatrefoils that were carved on the porches of ca-
thedrals in the thirteenth century, reflected to some extent
the march of the seasons and the incidents of human life—a
brill, because the fish-woman had guaranteed its freshness;
a turkey, because she had seen a beauty in the market at
Roussainville-le-Pin; cardoons with marrow, because she
had never done them for us in that way before; a roast leg of
mutton, because the fresh air made one hungry and there
would be plenty of time for it to ‘settle down’ in the seven
hours before dinner; spinach, by way of a change; apricots,
because they were still hard to get; gooseberries, because
in another fortnight there would be none left; raspberries,
which M. Swann had brought specially; cherries, the first to
come from the cherry-tree, which had yielded none for the
last two years; a cream cheese, of which in those days I was
extremely fond; an almond cake, because she had ordered
one the evening before; a fancy loaf, because it was our turn
to ‘offer’ the holy bread. And when all these had been eat-
en, a work composed expressly for ourselves, but dedicated

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