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But, later on, I formed the habit of going out by myself on such days, and walking towards Meseglise-la-Vineuse, during that autumn when we had to come to Combray to settle the division of my aunt Leonie's estate; for she had died at last, leaving both parties among her neighbours triumphant in the fact of her demise those who had insisted that her mode of life was enfeebling and must ultimately kill her, and, equally, those who had always maintained that she suffered from some disease not imaginary, but organic, by the visible proof of which the most sceptical would be obliged to own themselves convinced, once she had succumbed to it; causing no intense grief to any save one of her survivors, but to that one a grief savage in its violence.
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.
Leonie's own tree. I may just as well eat this orange now instead of flinging it away." Emerging from a wilderness of rocks and bushes, General Feraud and his seconds discovered General D'Hubert engaged in peeling the orange. They stood still, waiting till he looked up. Then the seconds raised their hats, while General Feraud, putting his hands behind his back, walked aside a little way.
How curious that these two Léonie and little Thérèse should be thus brought back into her life! For she had no doubt whatever that they would accept with eagerness what she had to offer. Her foster-sister had married a school-master in one of the Communal schools of Bruges while Julie was still a girl at the convent. Léonie's lame child had been much with her grandmother, old Madame Le Breton.
"No, no, I must go!" cried Delafield, rousing himself and looking for his hat. "I would ask you to stay," said Julie, smiling, "just to show off Léonie's cooking; but there wouldn't be enough for a great big man. And you're probably dining with dukes." Delafield disclaimed any such intention, and they went back to the drawing-room to look for his hat and stick.
At this moment Leonie's neighbor, a plump little body, whispered something in her ear and Leonie suddenly threw herself back on her chair, seized with a fit of noisy laughter, wriggling, looking at the gentleman and then laughing all the louder. "That's it. Oh! that's it," she stammered. "How dirty that Sophie is!" "What did she say?
All this was evident to everybody, and had nothing strange about it, but the world would have liked to know the history of that woman, and to look into the depths of her soul, and because people could not do this in Princess Leonie's case, they thought it very strange.
A pert smirk, and a hard glance of triumph, was Leonie's method of testifying her gratification; Eulalie looked sullen and envious she had hoped to be first.
Moreover, this was the first time for nearly a year that M. Langlois had handled bromine, and when Léonie saw him six months before at the laboratory he was engaged in experiments of quite another kind. Here the savage reasoner would infer that Léonie's spirit had visited M. Langlois. The modern inquirer will probably say that Léonie became aware of what was passing in the mind of M. Richet.
Just then, however, Leonie's husband accidentally made the young officer's acquaintance at the Jockey Club, took a fancy to him, and asked him to go and see him at his house. When he called and found the Princess alone his heart felt as if it would burst with pleasure, and seizing her hand, he pressed it ardently to his lips. "What are you doing, Count?" she said, drawing back.
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