Page 98 - swanns-way

draper himself would let her see what he had, bowing from
the waist: who, having made everything ready for shutting
up, had just gone into the back shop to put on his Sunday
coat and to wash his hands, which it was his habit, every
few minutes and even on the saddest occasions, to rub one
against the other with an air of enterprise, cunning, and
success.
And again, after mass, when we looked in to tell Théo-
dore to bring a larger loaf than usual because our cousins
had taken advantage of the fine weather to come over from
Thiberzy for luncheon, we had in front of us the steeple,
which, baked and brown itself like a larger loaf still of ‘holy
bread,’ with flakes and sticky drops on it of sunlight, pricked
its sharp point into the blue sky. And in the evening, as I
came in from my walk and thought of the approaching mo-
ment when I must say good night to my mother and see
her no more, the steeple was by contrast so kindly, there at
the close of day, that I would imagine it as being laid, like
a brown velvet cushion, against—as being thrust into the
pallid sky which had yielded beneath its pressure, had sunk
slightly so as to make room for it, and had correspondingly
risen on either side; while the cries of the birds wheeling to
and fro about it seemed to intensify its silence, to elongate
its spire still further, and to invest it with some quality be-
yond the power of words.
Even when our errands lay in places behind the church,
from which it could not be seen, the view seemed always
to have been composed with reference to the steeple, which
would stand up, now here, now there, among the houses,

98 Swann’s Way