Page 248 - swanns-way

a sofa and drew close beside her a little table on which she
placed the photograph, just as, long ago, M. Vinteuil had
‘placed’ beside him the piece of music which he would have
liked to play over to my parents. And then her friend came
in. Mlle. Vinteuil greeted her without rising, clasping her
hands behind her head, and drew her body to one side of the
sofa, as though to ‘make room.’ But no sooner had she done
this than she appeared to feel that she was perhaps suggest-
ing a particular position to her friend, with an emphasis
which might well be regarded as importunate. She thought
that her friend would prefer, no doubt, to sit down at some
distance from her, upon a chair; she felt that she had been
indiscreet; her sensitive heart took fright; stretching herself
out again over the whole of the sofa, she closed her eyes and
began to yawn, so as to indicate that it was a desire to sleep,
and that alone, which had made her lie down there. Despite
the rude and hectoring familiarity with which she treated
her companion I could recognise in her the obsequious and
reticent advances, the abrupt scruples and restraints which
had characterised her father. Presently she rose and came to
the window, where she pretended to be trying to close the
shutters and not succeeding.
‘Leave them open,’ said her friend. ‘I am hot.’
‘But it’s too dreadful! People will see us,’ Mlle. Vinteuil
answered. And then she guessed, probably, that her friend
would think that she had uttered these words simply in or-
der to provoke a reply in certain other words, which she
seemed, indeed, to wish to hear spoken, but, from prudence,
would let her friend be the first to speak. And so, although

248 Swann’s Way