a laugh which was one of her characteristics, and was intended at once to
shew the rest of an assembly that she was making fun of some one and
also to enhance her own beauty by concentrating her features around her
animated lips and sparkling eyes, answered: "Why; he's never been bet-
ter in his life!" And she went on laughing.
Mme. de Gallardon then drew herself up and, chilling her expression
still further, perhaps because she was still uneasy about the Prince's
health, said to her cousin:
"Oriane," (at once Mme. des Laumes looked with amused astonish-
ment towards an invisible third, whom she seemed to call to witness that
she had never authorised Mme. de Gallardon to use her Christian name)
"I should be so pleased if you would look in, just for a minute, to-mor-
row evening, to hear a quintet, with the clarinet, by Mozart. I should like
to have your opinion of it."
She seemed not so much to be issuing an invitation as to be asking fa-
vour, and to want the Princess's opinion of the Mozart quintet just
though it had been a dish invented by a new cook, whose talent it was
most important that an epicure should come to judge.
"But I know that quintet quite well. I can tell you now—that I adore it."
"You know, my husband isn't at all well; it's his liver. He would like so
much to see you," Mme. de Gallardon resumed, making it now a corpor-
al work of charity for the Princess to appear at her party.
The Princess never liked to tell people that she would not go to their
houses. Every day she would write to express her regret at having been
kept away—by the sudden arrival of her husband's mother, by an invita-
tion from his brother, by the Opera, by some excursion to the coun-
try—from some party to which she had never for a moment dreamed of
going. In this way she gave many people the satisfaction of feeling that
she was on intimate terms with them, that she would gladly have come
to their houses, and that she had been prevented from doing so only by
some princely occurrence which they were flattered to find competing
with their own humble entertainment. And then, as she belonged to that
witty 'Guermantes set'—in which there survived something of the alert
mentality, stripped of all commonplace phrases and conventional
317
sentiments, which dated from Mérimée, and found its final expression in
the plays of Meilhac and Halévy—she adapted its formula so as to suit
even her social engagements, transposed it into the courtesy which was
always struggling to be positive and precise, to approximate itself to the
plain truth. She would never develop at any length to a hostess the ex-
pression of her anxiety to be present at her party; she found it more
pleasant to disclose to her all the various little incidents on which it
would depend whether it was or was not possible for her to come.
"Listen, and I'll explain," she began to Mme. de Gallardon. "To-morrow evening I must go to a friend of mine, who has been pestering me to
fix a day for ages. If she takes us to the theatre afterwards, then I can't
possibly come to you, much as I should love to; but if we just stay in the
house, I know there won't be anyone else there, so I can slip away."
"Tell me, have you seen your friend M. Swann?"
"No! my precious Charles! I never knew he was here. Where is he? I
must catch his eye."
"It's a funny thing that he should come to old Saint-Euverte's," Mme.
de Gallardon went on. "Oh, I know he's very clever," meaning by that
'very cunning,' "but that makes no difference; fancy a Jew here, and she
the sister and sister-in-law of two Archbishops."
"I am ashamed to confess that I am not in the least shocked," said the Princesse des Laumes.
"I know he's a converted Jew, and all that, and his parents and grand-
parents before him. But they do say that the converted ones are worse
about their religion than the practising ones, that it's all just a pretence; is that true, d'you think?"
"I can throw no light at all on the matter."
The pianist, who was 'down' to play two pieces by Chopin, after fin-
ishing the Prelude had at once attacked a Polonaise. But once Mme. de
Gallardon had informed her cousin that Swann was in the room, Chopin
himself might have risen from the grave and played all his works in turn
without Mme. des Laumes's paying him the slightest attention. She be-
longed to that one of the two divisions of the human race in which the
untiring curiosity which the other half feels about the people whom it
does not know is replaced by an unfailing interest in the people whom it
does. As with many women of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the pres-
ence, in any room in which she might find herself, of another member of
her set, even although she had nothing in particular to say to him, would
occupy her mind to the exclusion of every other consideration. From that
moment, in the hope that Swann would catch sight of her, the Princess
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could do nothing but (like a tame white mouse when a lump of sugar is
put down before its nose and then taken away) turn her face, in which
were crowded a thousand signs of intimate connivance, none of them
with the least relevance to the sentiment underlying Chopin's music, in
the direction where Swann was, and, if he moved, divert accordingly the
course of her magnetic smile.
"Oriane, don't be angry with me," resumed Mme. de Gallardon, who
could never restrain herself from sacrificing her highest social ambitions,
and the hope that she might one day emerge into a light that would
dazzle the world, to the immediate and secret satisfaction of saying
something disagreeable, "people do say about your M. Swann that he's
the sort of man one can't have in the house; is that true?"
"Why, you, of all people, ought to know that it's true," replied the Princesse des Laumes, "for you must have asked him a hundred times, and
he's never been to your house once."
And leaving her cousin mortified afresh, she broke out again into a
laugh which scandalised everyone who was trying to listen to the music,
but attracted the attention of Mme. de Saint-Euverte, who had stayed,
out of politeness, near the piano, and caught sight of the Princess now
for the first time. Mme. de Saint-Euverte was all the more delighted to
see Mme. des Laumes, as she imagined her to be still at Guermantes,
looking after her father-in-law, who was ill.
"My dear Princess, you here?"
"Yes, I tucked myself away in a corner, and I've been hearing such
lovely things."
"What, you've been in the room quite a time?"
"Oh, yes, quite a long time, which seemed very short; it was only long
because I couldn't see you."
Mme. de Saint-Euverte offered her own chair to the Princess, who de-
clined it with:
"Oh, please, no! Why should you? It doesn't matter in the least where I
sit." And deliberately picking out, so as the better to display the simplicity of a really great lady, a low seat without a back: "There now, that
hassock, that's all I want. It will make me keep my back straight. Oh!
Good heavens, I'm making a noise again; they'll be telling you to have
me 'chucked out'."
Meanwhile, the pianist having doubled his speed, the emotion of the
music-lovers was reaching its climax, a servant was handing refresh-
ments about on a salver, and was making the spoons rattle, and, as on
every other 'party-night', Mme. de Saint-Euverte was making signs to
319
him, which he never saw, to leave the room. A recent bride, who had
been told that a young woman ought never to appear bored, was smiling
vigorously, trying to catch her hostess's eye so as to flash a token of her
gratitude for the other's having 'thought of her' in connection with so de-
lightful an entertainment. And yet, although she remained more calm
than Mme. de Franquetot, it was not without some uneasiness that she
followed the flying fingers; what alarmed her being not the pianist's fate
but the piano's, on which a lighted candle, jumping at each fortissimo, threatened, if not to set its shade on fire, at least to spill wax upon the
ebony. At last she could contain herself no longer, and, running up the
two steps of the platform on which the piano stood, flung herself on the
candle to adjust its sconce. But scarcely had her hand come within reach
of it when, on a final chord, the piece finished, and the pianist rose to his
feet. Nevertheless the bold initiative shewn by this young woman and
the moment of blushing confusion between her and the pianist which
resulted from it, produced an impression that was favourable on the
whole.
"Did you see what that girl did just now, Princess?" asked General de Froberville, who had come up to Mme. des Laumes as her hostess left
her for a moment. "Odd, wasn't it? Is she one of the performers?"
"No, she's a little Mme. de Cambremer," replied the Princess carelessly, and then, with more animation: "I am only repeating what I heard just
now, myself; I haven't the faintest notion who said it, it was some one be-
hind me who said that they were neighbours of Mme. de Saint-Euverte
in the country, but I don't believe anyone knows them, really. They must
be 'country cousins'! By the way, I don't know whether you're
particularly 'well-up' in the brilliant society which we see before us, be-
cause I've no idea who all these astonishing people can be. What do you
suppose they do with themselves when they're not at Mme. de Saint-
Euverte's parties? She must have ordered them in with the musicians
and the chairs and the food. 'Universal providers,' you know. You must
admit, they're rather splendid, General. But can she really have the cour-
age to hire the same 'supers' every week? It isn't possible!"
"Oh, but Cambremer is quite a good name; old, too," protested the
General.
"I see no objection to its being old," the Princess answered dryly, "but whatever else it is it's not euphonious," she went on, isolating the word
euphonious as though between inverted commas, a little affectation to
which the Guermantes set were addicted.
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"You think not, eh! She's a regular little peach, though," said the General, whose eyes never strayed from Mme. de Cambremer. "Don't you
agree with me, Princess?"
"She thrusts herself forward too much; I think, in so young a woman,
that's not very nice—for I don't suppose she's my generation," replied
Mme. des Laumes (the last word being common, it appeared, to Gallar-
don and Guermantes). And then, seeing that M. de Froberville was still
gazing at Mme. de Cambremer, she added, half out of malice towards
the lady, half wishing to oblige the General: "Not very nice… for her hus-
band! I am sorry that I do not know her, since she seems to attract you so
much; I might have introduced you to her," said the Princess, who, if she
had known the young woman, would most probably have done nothing
of the sort. "And now I must say good night, because one of my friends
is having a birthday party, and I must go and wish her many happy re-
turns," she explained, modestly and with truth, reducing the fashionable
gathering to which she was going to the simple proportions of a cere-
mony which would be boring in the extreme, but at which she was ob-
liged to be present, and there would be something touching about her
appearance. "Besides, I must pick up Basin. While I've been here, he's
gone to see those friends of his—you know them too, I'm sure,—who are
called after a bridge—oh, yes, the Iénas."
"It was a battle before it was a bridge, Princess; it was a victory!" said the General. "I mean to say, to an old soldier like me," he went on, wiping his monocle and replacing it, as though he were laying a fresh dress-
ing on the raw wound underneath, while the Princess instinctively
looked away, "that Empire nobility, well, of course, it's not the same
thing, but, after all, taking it as it is, it's very fine of its kind; they were people who really did fight like heroes."
"But I have the deepest respect for heroes," the Princess assented,
though with a faint trace of irony. "If I don't go with Basin to see this
Princesse d'Iéna, it isn't for that, at all; it's simply because I don't know
them. Basin knows them; he worships them. Oh, no, it's not what you
think; he's not in love with her. I've nothing to set my face against!
Besides, what good has it ever done when I have set my face against
them?" she queried sadly, for the whole world knew that, ever since the
day upon which the Prince des Laumes had married his fascinating
cousin, he had been consistently unfaithful to her. "Anyhow, it isn't that at all. They're people he has known for ever so long, they do him very
well, and that suits me down to the ground. But I must tell you what he's
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told me about their house; it's quite enough. Can you imagine it, all their
furniture is 'Empire'!"
"But, my dear Princess, that's only natural; it belonged to their
grandparents."
"I don't quite say it didn't, but that doesn't make it any less ugly. I
quite understand that people can't always have nice things, but at least
they needn't have things that are merely grotesque. What do you say? I
can think of nothing more devastating, more utterly smug than that
hideous style—cabinets covered all over with swans' heads, like bath-
taps!"
"But I believe, all the same, that they've got some lovely things; why,
they must have that famous mosaic table on which the Treaty of… "
"Oh, I don't deny, they may have things that are interesting enough
from the historic point of view. But things like that can't, ever, be beauti-
ful … because they're simply horrible! I've got things like that myself,
that came to Basin from the Montesquious. Only, they're up in the attics
at Guermantes, where nobody ever sees them. But, after all, that's not the
point, I would fly to see them, with Basin; I would even go to see them
among all their sphinxes and brasses, if I knew them, but—I don't know
them! D'you know, I was always taught, when I was a little girl, that it
was not polite to call on people one didn't know." She assumed a tone of
childish gravity. "And so I am just doing what I was taught to do. Can't
you see those good people, with a totally strange woman bursting into
their house? Why, I might get a most hostile reception."
And she coquettishly enhanced the charm of the smile which the idea
had brought to her lips, by giving to her blue eyes, which were fixed on
the General, a gentle, dreamy expression.
"My dear Princess, you know that they'd be simply wild with joy."
"No, why?" she inquired, with the utmost vivacity, either so as to seem unaware that it would be because she was one of the first ladies in
France, or so as to have the pleasure of hearing the General tell her so.
"Why? How can you tell? Perhaps they would think it the most unpleas-
ant thing that could possibly happen. I know nothing about them, but if
they're anything like me, I find it quite boring enough to see the people I
do know; I'm sure if I had to see people I didn't know as well, even if
they had 'fought like heroes,' I should go stark mad. Besides, except
when it's an old friend like you, whom one knows quite apart from that,
I'm not sure that 'heroism' takes one very far in society. It's often quite
boring enough to have to give a dinner-party, but if one had to offer
one's arm to Spartacus, to let him take one down… ! Really, no; it would
322
never be Vercingetorix I should send for, to make a fourteenth. I feel
sure, I should keep him for really big 'crushes.' And as I never give any…
"
"Ah! Princess, it's easy to see you're not a Guermantes for nothing. You
have your share of it, all right, the 'wit of the Guermantes'!"
"But people always talk about the wit of the Guermantes; I never could
make out why. Do you really know any others who have it?" she rallied
him, with a rippling flow of laughter, her features concentrated, yoked to
the service of her animation, her eyes sparkling, blazing with a radiant
sunshine of gaiety which could be kindled only by such speeches—even
if the Princess had to make them herself—as were in praise of h wit or of
her beauty. "Look, there's Swann talking to your Cambremer woman;
over there, beside old Saint-Euverte, don't you see him? Ask him to in-
troduce you. But hurry up, he seems to be just going!"
"Did you notice how dreadfully ill he's looking?" asked the General.
"My precious Charles? Ah, he's coming at last; I was beginning to
think he didn't want to see me!"
Swann was extremely fond of the Princesse des Laumes, and the sight
of her recalled to him Guermantes, a property close to Combray, and all
that country which he so dearly loved and had ceased to visit, so as not
to be separated from Odette. Slipping into the manner, half-artistic, half-
amorous—with which he could always manage to amuse the Princess—a
manner which came to him quite naturally whenever he dipped for a
moment into the old social atmosphere, and wishing also to express in
words, for his own satisfaction, the longing that he felt for the country:
"Ah!" he exclaimed, or rather intoned, in such a way as to be audible at once to Mme. de Saint-Euverte, to whom he spoke, and to Mme. des
Laumes, for whom he was speaking, "Behold our charming Princess! See,
she has come up on purpose from Guermantes to hear Saint Francis
preach to the birds, and has only just had time, like a dear little tit-
mouse, to go and pick a few little hips and haws and put them in her
hair; there are even some drops of dew upon them still, a little of the
hoar-frost which must be making the Duchess, down there, shiver. It is
very pretty indeed, my dear Princess."
"What! The Princess came up on purpose from Guermantes? But that's
too wonderful! I never knew; I'm quite bewildered," Mme. de Saint-
Euverte protested with quaint simplicity, being but little accustomed to
Swann's way of speaking. And then, examining the Princess's headdress,
"Why, you're quite right; it is copied from… what shall I say, not chest-
nuts, no,—oh, it's a delightful idea, but how can the Princess have
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known what was going to be on my programme? The musicians didn't
tell me, even."
Swann, who was accustomed, when he was with a woman whom he
had kept up the habit of addressing in terms of gallantry, to pay her del-
icate compliments which most other people would not and need not un-
derstand, did not condescend to explain to Mme. de Saint-Euverte that
he had been speaking metaphorically. As for the Princess, she was in fits
of laughter, both because Swann's wit was highly appreciated by her set,
and because she could never hear a compliment addressed to herself
without finding it exquisitely subtle and irresistibly amusing.
"Indeed! I'm delighted, Charles, if my little hips and haws meet with
your approval. But tell me, why did you bow to that Cambremer person,
are you also her neighbour in the country?"
Mme. de Saint-Euverte, seeing that the Princess seemed quite happy
talking to Swann, had drifted away.
"But you are, yourself, Princess!"
"I! Why, they must have 'countries' everywhere, those creatures! Don't
I wish I had!"
"No, not the Cambremers; her own people. She was a Legrandin, and
used to come to Combray. I don't know whether you are aware that you
are Comtesse de Combray, and that the Chapter owes you a due."
"I don't know what the Chapter owes me, but I do know that I'm
'touched' for a hundred francs, every year, by the Curé, which is a due
that I could very well do without. But surely these Cambremers have
rather a startling name. It ends just in time, but it ends badly!" she said with a laugh.
"It begins no better." Swann took the point.
"Yes; that double abbreviation!"
"Some one very angry and very proper who didn't dare to finish the
first word."
"But since he couldn't stop himself beginning the second, he'd have
done better to finish the first and be done with it. We are indulging in the
most refined form of humour, my dear Charles, in the very best of
taste—but how tiresome it is that I never see you now," she went on in a
coaxing tone, "I do so love talking to you. Just imagine, I could not make that idiot Froberville see that there was anything funny about the name
Cambremer. Do agree that life is a dreadful business. It's only when I see
you that I stop feeling bored."
Which was probably not true. But Swann and the Princess had the
same way of looking at the little things of life—the effect, if not the cause
324
of which was a close analogy between their modes of expression and
even of pronunciation. This similarity was not striking because no two
things could have been more unlike than their voices. But if one took the
trouble to imagine Swann's utterances divested of the sonority that en-
wrapped them, of the moustache from under which they emerged, one
found that they were the same phrases, the same inflexions, that they
had the 'tone' of the Guermantes set. On important matters, Swann and
the Princess had not an idea in common. But since Swann had become so
melancholy, and was always in that trembling condition which precedes
a flood of tears, he had the same need to speak about his grief that a
murderer has to tell some one about his crime. And when he heard the
Princess say that life was a dreadful business, he felt as much comforted
as if she had spoken to him of Odette.
"Yes, life is a dreadful business! We must meet more often, my dear
friend. What is so nice about you is that you are not cheerful. We could
spend a most pleasant evening together."
"I'm sure we could; why not come down to Guermantes? My mother-
in-law would be wild with joy. It's supposed to be very ugly down there,
but I must say, I find the neighborhood not at all unattractive; I have a
horror of 'picturesque spots'."
"I know it well, it's delightful!" replied Swann. "It's almost too beautiful, too much alive for me just at present; it's a country to be happy in.
It's perhaps because I have lived there, but things there speak to me so.
As soon as a breath of wind gets up, and the cornfields begin to stir, I
feel that some one is going to appear suddenly, that I am going to hear
some news; and those little houses by the water's edge… I should be
quite wretched!"
"Oh! my dearest Charles, do take care; there's that appalling Rampillon
woman; she's seen me; hide me somewhere, do tell me again, quickly,
what it was that happened to her; I get so mixed up; she's just married
off her daughter, or her lover (I never can remember),—perhaps
both—to each other! Oh, no, I remember now, she's been dropped by her
Prince… Pretend to be talking, so that the poor old Berenice sha'n't come
and invite me to dinner. Anyhow, I'm going. Listen, my dearest Charles,
now that I have seen you, once in a blue moon, won't you let me carry
you off and take you to the Princesse de Parme's, who would be so
pleased to see you (you know), and Basin too, for that matter; he's meet-
ing me there. If one didn't get news of you, sometimes, from Mémé… Re-
member, I never see you at all now!"
325
Swann declined. Having told M. de Charlus that, on leaving Mme. de
Saint-Euverte's, he would go straight home, he did not care to run the
risk, by going on now to the Princesse de Parme's, of missing a message
which he had, all the time, been hoping to see brought in to him by one
of the footmen, during the party, and which he was perhaps going to
find left with his own porter, at home.
"Poor Swann," said Mme. des Laumes that night to her husband; "he is always charming, but he does look so dreadfully unhappy. You will see
for yourself, for he has promised to dine with us one of these days. I do
feel that it's really absurd that a man of his intelligence should let himself
be made to suffer by a creature of that kind, who isn't even interesting,
for they tell me, she's an absolute idiot!" she concluded with the wisdom
invariably shewn by people who, not being in love themselves, feel that
a clever man ought to be unhappy only about such persons as are worth