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excited at the prospect of at last seeing Catholics, a peculiar race of mysterious natives. As we bowled along, we sang to the tune of "Why are we waiting?": "Wee roffto see the Cath-er-lix, wee roff to see the Cath-er-lix..."
    'But to get back to Tantlérie. Wearing her flat hat with the little veil at the back, she would sally forth at ten of a morning in her open carriage driven by top-hatted, top-booted Moses. She went off to inspect her dear city, to see if all was as it should be. If some imperfection offended her, a railing that had worked loose, a piece of ironwork that was threatening to fall down or a public fountain that had dried up, she would "pop in and see one of their lordships", which meant that she was about to give one of the members of the Genevan government a good wigging. The prestige of her name and her force of character, backed by her liberalities and connections, were such that their lordships always bent over backwards to keep her hat straight. An illustration of Tantlérie's Genevan patriotism: she once broke with an English princess who, though every whit as pious as she, had written a letter containing a joke about Geneva.
    'By eleven she was back in her handsome villa at Champel, which, with her open carriage, was her only luxury. She was, as I've said, most charitably inclined, but spent hardly anything on herself. I can still see those black, very stylish dresses with a hint of train at the back, but they were all old, shiny and carefully mended. At noon the gong was sounded. At half past twelve it was sounded again and everyone had to go into lunch at once. Lateness was not tolerated. Uncle Agrippa, Jacques, Éliane and I had to remain standing while we waited for the arrival of the "chieftainess", as we sometimes called her among ourselves. Of course, we never sat down until she did.
    'At table, after grace had been said, the conversation would turn on respectable subjects such as flowers ("with sunflowers, you must always bruise the ends of the stems if you want them to last") or the colours of setting suns ("I have always loved them so, I was so terribly grateful for the gift of such splendour!") or changes of temperature ("I felt rather cold when I got up this morning") or the latest sermon of a favourite minister ("it was thoroughly thought out and prettily expressed"). There was much talk too of the progress of evangelization in the Zambezi, which explains why I am very well up in the black tribes of Africa. For instance, I know that in Basutoland the King's name is Lewanika, that the Basutos call their country Lesotho and speak Sesotho. On the other hand, it was not the done thing to speak of what my aunt called "material things". One day I remember being scatty enough to say that I thought there was a mite too much salt in the soup. She frowned and froze me with these words: "Tsk, Ariane, really!" I got the same reaction another time when I could not prevent myself commending a chocolate mousse which had been served. I felt my heart in my mouth when she cast her cold eyes on me.
    'Cold is right, but she was also profoundly good-hearted. She did not know how to show it though, or express it. It wasn't insensitivity but aristocratic reserve, or perhaps a fear of the carnal. Hardly ever a kind word, and on the rare occasions when she kissed me it was just a brush with the lips on my forehead. On the other hand, when I was ill she would get up several times a night and trot along in her old, regal dressing-gown to see if I had woken up or thrown the covers off. O darling Tantlérie, though I never dared call you that.
    'I must remember to put somewhere in my novel the blasphemous things I used to say when I was little. I was very pious and yet when I was in the shower I couldn't help myself saying suddenly: "Mangy old God!" But then I would shout out straightaway: "No, no, I didn't say it! God is good, God is very kind!" And then it would begin all over again and I'd come out with more