Goupil was expecting company to
luncheon, though, alas, she must wait a little more than an hour still
before enjoying the spectacle. "And it will come in the middle of my
luncheon!" she would murmur to herself. Her luncheon was such a
distraction in itself that she did not like any other to come at the same
time. "At least, you will not forget to give me my creamed eggs on one of
the flat plates?" These were the only plates which had pictures on them
and my aunt used to amuse herself at every meal by reading the description
on whichever might have been sent up to her. She would put on her
spectacles and spell out: "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," "Aladdin, or
the Wonderful Lamp," and smile, and say "Very good indeed."
"I may as well go across to Camus..." Francoise would hazard, seeing that
my aunt had no longer any intention of sending her there.
"No, no; it's not worth while now; it's certain to be the Pupin girl. My
poor Francoise, I am sorry to have made you come upstairs for nothing."
But it was not for nothing, as my aunt well knew, that she had rung for
Francoise, since at Combray a person whom one 'didn't know at all' was as
incredible a being as any mythological deity, and it was apt to be
forgotten that after each occasion on which there had appeared in the Rue
du Saint-Esprit or in the Square one of these bewildering phenomena,
careful and exhaustive researches had invariably reduced the fabulous
monster to the proportions of a person whom one 'did know,' either
personally or in the abstract, in his or her civil status as being more or
less closely related to some family in Combray.
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