Page 154 - swanns-way

certain it will rain before the day is out. It couldn’t possi-
bly keep on like this, it’s been too hot. And the sooner the
better, for until the storm breaks my Vichy water won’t ‘go
down,’’ she concluded, since, in her mind, the desire to ac-
celerate 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 sa-
cred text, its meaning being slightly clouded in her brain by
the uncertainty whether the pepsin, when taken so long af-
ter 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 of sand were being sprinkled from
a window overhead; then the fall spread, took on an order,
a rhythm, became liquid, loud, drumming, musical, innu-
merable, universal. It was the rain.

154 Swann’s Way