I think that Francoise
disbelieved me, for, like those primitive men whose senses were so much
keener than our own, she could immediately detect, by signs imperceptible
by the rest of us, the truth or falsehood of anything that we might wish
to conceal from her. She studied the envelope for five minutes as though
an examination of the paper itself 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 deliver the note at once, in
front of everybody; but that when the finger-bowls were put round he would
find a way of slipping 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 whisper 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 mortal 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
attention while she was reading what I had written.
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