Françoise, in any great sorrow, felt the need but did not possess the art—as simple as that need was futile—of giving it expression. Regarding my grandmother’s case as quite hopeless, it was her own personal impressions that she was impelled to communicate to us. And all that she could do was to repeat: “It makes me feel all queer,” in the same tone in which she would say, when she had taken too large a plateful of cabbage broth: “It’s like a load on my stomach,” sensations both of which were more natural than she seemed to think. Though so feebly expressed, her grief was nevertheless very great, and was aggravated moreover by her annoyance that her daughter, detained at Combray (to which this young Parisian now referred as “the Cambrousse” and where she felt herself growing “ pétrousse ,” in other words fossilised), would not, presumably, be able to return in time for the funeral ceremony, which was certain, Françoise felt, to be a superb spectacle. Knowing that we were not inclined to be expansive, she made Jupien promise at all costs to keep every evening in the week free. She knew that he would be engaged elsewhere at the hour of the funeral. She was determined at least to “go over it all” with him on his return.
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