Page 161 - swanns-way

and you collect all the cobwebs off the staircase upon your
clothes. In any case you should be well wrapped up,’ he went
on, without noticing my aunt’s fury at the mere suggestion
that she could ever, possibly, be capable of climbing into his
belfry, ‘for there’s a strong breeze there, once you get to the
top. Some people even assure me that they have felt the chill
of death up there. No matter, on Sundays there are always
clubs and societies, who come, some of them, long distances
to admire our beautiful panorama, and they always go home
charmed. Wait now, next Sunday, if the weather holds, you
will be sure to find a lot of people there, for Rogation-tide.
You must admit, certainly, that the view from up there is
like a fairy-tale, with what you might call vistas along the
plain, which have quite a special charm of their own. On a
clear day you can see as far as Verneuil. And then another
thing; you can see at the same time places which you are in
the habit of seeing one without the other, as, for instance,
the course of the Vivonne and the ditches at Saint-Assise-
lès-Combray, which are separated, really, by a screen of tall
trees; or, to take another example, there are all the canals
at Jouy-le-Vicomte, which is Gaudiacus vicecomitis, as of
course you know. Each time that I have been to Jouy I have
seen a bit of a canal in one place, and then I have turned a
corner and seen another, but when I saw the second I could
no longer see the first. I tried in vain to imagine how they
lay by one another; it was no good. But, from the top of
Saint-Hilaire, it’s quite another matter; the whole country-
side is spread out before you like a map. Only, you cannot
make out the water; you would say that there were great rifts

161