Page 162 - swanns-way

in the town, slicing it up so neatly that it looks like a loaf of
bread which still holds together after it has been cut up. To
get it all quite perfect you would have to be in both places at
once; up here on the top of Saint-Hilaire and down there at
Jouy-le-Vicomte.’
The Curé had so much exhausted my aunt that no sooner
had he gone than she was obliged to send away Eulalie also.
‘Here, my poor Eulalie,’ she said in a feeble voice, draw-
ing a coin from a small purse which lay ready to her hand.
‘This is just something so that you shall not forget me in
your prayers.’
‘Oh, but, Mme. Octave, I don’t think I ought to; you
know very well that I don’t come here for that!’ So Eulalie
would answer, with the same hesitation and the same em-
barrassment, every Sunday, as though each temptation were
the first, and with a look of displeasure which enlivened my
aunt and never offended her, for if it so happened that Eula-
lie, when she took the money, looked a little less sulky than
usual, my aunt would remark afterwards, ‘I cannot think
what has come over Eulalie; I gave her just the trifle I always
give, and she did not look at all pleased.’
‘I don’t think she has very much to complain of, all the
same,’ Françoise would sigh grimly, for she had a tenden-
cy to regard as petty cash all that my aunt might give her
for herself or her children, and as treasure riotously squan-
dered on a pampered and ungrateful darling the little coins
slipped, Sunday by Sunday, into Eulalie’s hand, but so dis-
creetly passed that Françoise never managed to see them. It
was not that she wanted to have for herself the money my

162 Swann’s Way