Page 186 - swanns-way

the moment in my private conception of her character; the
aroma of that cooked flesh, which she knew how to make so
unctuous and so tender, seeming to me no more than the
proper perfume of one of her many virtues.
But the day on which, while my father took counsel with
his family upon our strange meeting with Legrandin, I went
down to the kitchen, was one of those days when Giotto’s
Charity, still very weak and ill after her recent confinement,
had been unable to rise from her bed; Françoise, being with-
out assistance, had fallen into arrears. When I went in, I saw
her in the back-kitchen which opened on to the courtyard,
in process of killing a chicken; by its desperate and quite
natural resistance, which Françoise, beside herself with rage
as she attempted to slit its throat beneath the ear, accompa-
nied with shrill cries of ‘Filthy creature! Filthy creature!’ it
made the saintly kindness and unction of our servant rather
less prominent than it would do, next day at dinner, when it
made its appearance in a skin gold-embroidered like a cha-
suble, and its precious juice was poured out drop by drop
as from a pyx. When it was dead Françoise mopped up its
streaming blood, in which, however, she did not let her ran-
cour drown, for she gave vent to another burst of rage, and,
gazing down at the carcass of her enemy, uttered a final
‘Filthy creature!’
I crept out of the kitchen and upstairs, trembling all
over; I could have prayed, then, for the instant dismiss-
al of Françoise. But who would have baked me such hot
rolls, boiled me such fragrant coffee, and even—roasted me
such chickens? And, as it happened, everyone else had al-

186 Swann’s Way