Page 232 - swanns-way

ing the walls of old houses.
But on other days would begin to fall the rain, of which we
had had due warning from the little barometer-figure which
the spectacle-maker hung out in his doorway. Its drops, like
migrating birds which fly off in a body at a given moment,
would come down out of the sky in close marching order.
They would never drift apart, would make no movement at
random in their rapid course, but each one, keeping in its
place, would draw after it the drop which was following,
and the sky would be as greatly darkened as by the swal-
lows flying south. We would take refuge among the trees.
And when it seemed that their flight was accomplished, a
few last drops, feebler and slower than the rest, would still
come down. But we would emerge from our shelter, for the
rain was playing a game, now, among the branches, and,
even when it was almost dry again underfoot, a stray drop
or two, lingering in the hollow of a leaf, would run down
and hang glistening from the point of it until suddenly it
splashed plump upon our upturned faces from the whole
height of the tree.
Often, too, we would hurry for shelter, tumbling in
among all its stony saints and patriarchs, into the porch
of Saint-André-des-Champs, How typically French that
church was! Over its door the saints, the kings of chivalry
with lilies in their hands, the wedding scenes and funerals
were carved as they might have been in the mind of Fran-
çoise. The sculptor had also recorded certain anecdotes of
Aristotle and Virgil, precisely as Françoise in her kitchen
would break into speech about Saint Louis as though she

232 Swann’s Way