She would hold out for me to kiss her sad, pale, lacklustre forehead, on which at this early hour she would not yet have arranged the false hair and through which the bones shone like the points of a crown of thorns or the beads of a rosary, and she would say to me: “Now, my poor child, off you go and get ready for mass; and if you see Françoise downstairs, tell her not to stay too long amusing herself with you; she must come up soon to see if I need anything.”

Françoise, who had been for many years in my aunt’s service and did not at that time suspect that she would one day be transferred entirely to ours, was a little inclined to neglect my aunt during the months which we spent there. There had been in my early childhood, before we first went to Combray, and when my aunt Léonie used still to spend the winter in Paris with her mother, a time when I knew Françoise so little that on New Year’s Day, before going into my great-aunt’s house, my mother would put a five-franc piece into my hand and say: “Now, be careful. Don’t make any mistake. Wait until you hear me say ‘Good morning, Françoise,’ and tap you on the arm, before you give it to her.” No sooner had we arrived in my aunt’s dark hall than we saw in the gloom, beneath the frills of a snowy bonnet as stiff and fragile as if it had been made of spun sugar, the concentric ripples of a smile of anticipatory gratitude. It was Françoise, motionless and erect, framed in the small doorway of the corridor like the statue of a saint in its niche. When we had grown more accustomed to this religious darkness we could discern in her features the disinterested love of humanity, the tender respect for the gentry, which the hope of receiving New Year bounty intensified in the nobler regions of her heart. Mamma pinched my arm sharply and said in a loud voice: “Good morning, Françoise.” At this signal my fingers parted and I let fall the coin, which found a receptacle in a shy but outstretched hand. But since we had begun to go to Combray there was no one I knew better than Françoise. We were her favourites, and in the first years at least she showed for us not only the same consideration as for my aunt, but a keener relish, because we had, in addition to the prestige of belonging to “the family” (for she had for those invisible bonds which the community of blood creates between the members of a family as much respect as any Greek tragedian), the charm of not being her customary employers. And so with what joy would she welcome us, with what sorrow complain that the weather was still so bad for us, on the day of our arrival, just before Easter, when there was often an icy wind; while Mamma inquired after her daughter and her nephews, and if her grandson was a nice boy, and what they were going to do with him, and whether he took after his granny.

And later, when no one else was in the room, Mamma, who knew that Françoise was still mourning for her parents, who had been dead for years, would speak to her kindly about them, asking her endless little questions concerning their lives.

She had guessed that Françoise was not over-fond of her son-in-law, and that he spoiled the pleasure she found in visiting her daughter, with whom she could not talk so freely when he was there. And so, when Françoise was going to their house, some miles from Combray, Mamma would say to her with a smile: “Tell me, Françoise, if Julien has had to go away, and you have Marguerite to yourself all day, you’ll be very sorry, but you will make the best of it, won’t you?”

And Françoise answered, laughing: “Madame knows everything; Madame is worse than the X-rays” (she pronounced the “x” with an affectation of difficulty and a self-mocking smile that someone so ignorant should employ this learned term) “that they brought here for Mme Octave, and which can see what’s in your heart”—and she went off, overwhelmed that anyone should be caring about her, perhaps anxious that we should not see her in tears: Mamma was the first person who had given her the heart-warming feeling that her peasant existence, with its simple joys and sorrows, might be an object of interest, might be a source of grief or pleasure to someone other than herself.

My aunt resigned herself to doing without Françoise to some extent during our visits, knowing how much my mother appreciated the services of so active and intelligent a maid, one who looked as smart at five o’clock in the morning in her kitchen, under a bonnet whose stiff and dazzling frills seemed to be made of porcelain, as when dressed for high mass; who did everything in the right way, toiling like a horse, whether she was well or ill, but without fuss, without the appearance of doing anything; the only one of my aunt’s maids who when Mamma asked for hot water or black coffee would bring them actually boiling. She was one of those servants who, in a household, seem least satisfactory at first to a stranger, doubtless because they take no pains to make a conquest of him and show him no special attention, knowing very well that they have no real need of him, that he will cease to be invited to the house sooner than they will be dismissed from it, but who, on the other hand, are most prized by masters and mistresses who have tested and proved their real capacity, and care nothing for that superficial affability, that servile chit-chat which may impress a stranger favourably, but often conceals an incurable incompetence.

When Françoise, having seen that my parents had everything they required, first went upstairs again to give my aunt her pepsin and to find out from her what she would take for lunch, it was rare indeed for her not to be called upon to give an opinion, or to furnish an explanation, in regard to some important event.

“Just fancy, Françoise, Mme Goupil went by more than a quarter of an hour late to fetch her sister: if she loses any more time on the way I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she arrived after the Elevation.”

“Well, there’d be nothing wonderful in that,” would be the answer.

“Françoise, if you had come in five minutes ago, you would have seen Mme Imbert go past with some asparagus twice the size of Mother Callot’s: do try to find out from her cook where she got them. You know you’ve been serving asparagus with everything this spring; you might be able to get some like those for our visitors.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised if they came from the Curé’s,” Françoise would say.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t, my poor Françoise,” my aunt would reply, shrugging her shoulders. “From the Curé’s, indeed! You know quite well that he never grows anything but wretched little twigs of asparagus. I tell you these ones were as thick as my arm. Not your arm, of course, but my poor arm, which has grown so much thinner again this year … Françoise, didn’t you hear that bell just now that nearly split my skull?”

“No, Mme Octave.”

“Ah, my poor girl, your skull must be very thick; you may thank God for that. It was Maguelone come to fetch Dr Piperaud. He came out with her at once and they went off along the Rue de l’Oiseau. There must be some child ill.”

“Oh, dear God!” Françoise would sigh, for she could not hear of any calamity befalling a person unknown to her, even in some distant part of the world, without beginning to lament.

“Françoise, who were they tolling the knell for just now? Oh dear, of course, it would be for Mme Rousseau. And to think that I had forgotten that she passed away the other night. Ah! it’s time the good Lord called me too; I don’t know what has become of my head since I lost my poor Octave. But I’m wasting your time, my good girl.”

“Not at all, Mme Octave, my time is not so precious; the one who made it doesn’t charge us for it. I’m just going to see if my fire’s going out.”

Thus Françoise and my aunt between them made a critical evaluation, in the course of these morning sessions, of the earliest events of the day. But sometimes these events assumed so mysterious or so alarming a character that my aunt felt she could not wait until it was time for Françoise to come upstairs, and then a formidable and quadruple peal would resound through the house.

“But, Mme Octave, it’s not yet time for your pepsin,” Françoise would begin. “Are you feeling faint?”

“No, no, Françoise,” my aunt would reply, “that is to say, yes; you know quite well that there’s very seldom a time when I don’t feel faint; one day I shall pass away like Mme Rousseau, before I know where I am; but that’s not why I rang. Would you believe that I’ve just seen, as plain as I can see you, Mme Goupil with a little girl I didn’t know from Adam. Run and get a pennyworth of salt from Camus. It’s not often that Théodore can’t tell you who a person is.”

“But that must be M. Pupin’s daughter,” Françoise would say, preferring to stick to an immediate explanation, since she had been twice already into Camus’s shop that morning.

“M. Pupin’s daughter! Oh, that’s a likely story, my poor Françoise.