But on some days, though very rarely, the chest-of-drawers would
long since have shed its momentary adornments, there would no longer, as
we turned into the Rue du Saint-Esprit, be any reflection from the western
sky burning along the line of window-panes; the pond beneath the Calvary
would have lost its fiery glow, sometimes indeed had changed already to an
opalescent pallor, while a long ribbon of moonlight, bent and broken and
broadened by every ripple upon the water's surface, would be lying across
it, from end to end. Then, as we drew near the house, we would make out a
figure standing upon the doorstep, and Mamma would say to me: "Good
heavens! There is Francoise looking out for us; your aunt must be anxious;
that means we are late."
And without wasting time by stopping to take off our 'things' we would fly
upstairs to my aunt Leonie's room to reassure her, to prove to her by our
bodily presence that all her gloomy imaginings were false, that, on the
contrary, nothing had happened to us, but that we had gone the 'Guermantes
way,' and, good lord, when one took that walk, my aunt knew well
enough that one could never say at what time one would be home.
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