Page 45 - swanns-way

self and the look of my handwriting could enlighten her as
to the nature of the contents, or tell her to which article of
her code she ought to refer the matter. Then she went out
with an air of resignation which seemed to imply: ‘What a
dreadful thing for parents to have a child like this!’
A moment later she returned to say that they were still at
the ice stage and that it was impossible for the butler to de-
liver the note at once, in front of everybody; but that when
the finger-bowls were put round he would find a way of slip-
ping it into Mamma’s hand. At once my anxiety subsided;
it was now no longer (as it had been a moment ago) until
to-morrow that I had lost my mother, for my little line was
going—to annoy her, no doubt, and doubly so because this
contrivance would make me ridiculous in Swann’s eyes—
but was going all the same to admit me, invisibly and by
stealth, into the same room as herself, was going to whis-
per from me into her ear; for that forbidden and unfriendly
dining-room, where but a moment ago the ice itself—with
burned nuts in it—and the finger-bowls seemed to me to be
concealing pleasures that were mischievous and of a mor-
tal sadness because Mamma was tasting of them and I was
far away, had opened its doors to me and, like a ripe fruit
which bursts through its skin, was going to pour out into
my intoxicated heart the gushing sweetness of Mamma’s at-
tention while she was reading what I had written. Now I was
no longer separated from her; the barriers were down; an
exquisite thread was binding us. Besides, that was not all,
for surely Mamma would come.
As for the agony through which I had just passed, I

45