Page 176 - swanns-way

er would murmur admiringly ‘You really are wonderful!’
And from that instant I had not to take another step; the
ground moved forward under my feet in that garden where,
for so long, my actions had ceased to require any control, or
even attention, from my will. Custom came to take me in
her arms, carried me all the way up to my bed, and laid me
down there like a little child.
Although Saturday, by beginning an hour earlier, and
by depriving her of the services of Françoise, passed more
slowly than other days for my aunt, yet, the moment it was
past, and a new week begun, she would look forward with
impatience to its return, as something that embodied all
the novelty and distraction which her frail and disordered
body was still able to endure. This was not to say, however,
that she did not long, at times, for some even greater varia-
tion, that she did not pass through those abnormal hours
in which one thirsts for something different from what
one has, when those people who, through lack of energy
or imagination, are unable to generate any motive power
in themselves, cry out, as the clock strikes or the postman
knocks, in their eagerness for news (even if it be bad news),
for some emotion (even that of grief); when the heartstrings,
which prosperity has silenced, like a harp laid by, yearn to
be plucked and sounded again by some hand, even a brutal
hand, even if it shall break them; when the will, which has
with such difficulty brought itself to subdue its impulse, to
renounce its right to abandon itself to its own uncontrolled
desires, and consequent sufferings, would fain cast its guid-
ing reins into the hands of circumstances, coercive and, it

176 Swann’s Way