Page 57 - swanns-way

than theirs from my own, had probably prevented him from
guessing, until then, how wretched I was every evening, a
thing which my mother and grandmother knew well; but
they loved me enough to be unwilling to spare me that suf-
fering, which they hoped to teach me to overcome, so as to
reduce my nervous sensibility and to strengthen my will. As
for my father, whose affection for me was of another kind, I
doubt if he would have shewn so much courage, for as soon
as he had grasped the fact that I was unhappy he had said
to my mother: ‘Go and comfort him.’ Mamma stayed all
night in my room, and it seemed that she did not wish to
mar by recrimination those hours, so different from any-
thing that I had had a right to expect; for when Françoise
(who guessed that something extraordinary must have hap-
pened when she saw Mamma sitting by my side, holding my
hand and letting me cry unchecked) said to her: ‘But, Ma-
dame, what is little Master crying for?’ she replied: ‘Why,
Françoise, he doesn’t know himself: it is his nerves. Make
up the big bed for me quickly and then go off to your own.’
And thus for the first time my unhappiness was regarded
no longer as a fault for which I must be punished, but as an
involuntary evil which had been officially recognised a ner-
vous condition for which I was in no way responsible: I had
the consolation that I need no longer mingle apprehensive
scruples with the bitterness of my tears; I could weep hence-
forward without sin. I felt no small degree of pride, either,
in Franchise’s presence at this return to humane conditions
which, not an hour after Mamma had refused to come up to
my room and had sent the snubbing message that I was to

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