Page 41 - swanns-way

What virtues, Lord, Thou makest us abhor!
Good, that is, very good.’
I never took my eyes off my mother. I knew that when
they were at table I should not be permitted to stay there
for the whole of dinner-time, and that Mamma, for fear of
annoying my father, would not allow me to give her in pub-
lic the series of kisses that she would have had in my room.
And so I promised myself that in the dining-room, as they
began to eat and drink and as I felt the hour approach, I
would put beforehand into this kiss, which was bound to be
so brief and stealthy in execution, everything that my own
efforts could put into it: would look out very carefully first
the exact spot on her cheek where I would imprint it, and
would so prepare my thoughts that I might be able, thanks
to these mental preliminaries, to consecrate the whole of
the minute Mamma would allow me to the sensation of her
cheek against my lips, as a painter who can have his subject
for short sittings only prepares his palette, and from what
he remembers and from rough notes does in advance every-
thing which he possibly can do in the sitter’s absence. But
to-night, before the dinner-bell had sounded, my grandfa-
ther said with unconscious cruelty: ‘The little man looks
tired; he’d better go up to bed. Besides, we are dining late
to-night.’
And my father, who was less scrupulous than my grand-
mother or mother in observing the letter of a treaty, went
on: ‘Yes, run along; to bed with you.’
I would have kissed Mamma then and there, but at that
moment the dinner-bell rang.

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