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By Root 1427 0

provincial,” said Mme Cottard to Swann, “but I haven’t yet seen this famous Francillon that everybody’s talking about. The Doctor has been (I remember now, he told me he had the great pleasure of spending the evening with you) and I must confess I didn’t think it very sensible for him to spend money on seats in order to see it again with me. Of course an evening at the Théâtre-Français is never really wasted; the acting’s so good there always; but we have some very nice friends” (Mme Cottard rarely uttered a proper name, but restricted herself to “some friends of ours” or “one of my friends,” as being more “distinguished,” speaking in an affected tone and with the self-importance of a person who need give names only when she chooses) “who often have a box, and are kind enough to take us to all the new pieces that are worth going to, and so I’m certain to see Francillon sooner or later, and then I shall know what to think. But I do feel such a fool about it, I must confess, for wherever I go I naturally find everybody talking about that wretched Japanese salad. In fact one’s beginning to get just a little tired of hearing about it,” she went on, seeing that Swann seemed less interested than she had hoped in so burning a topic. “I must admit, though, that it provides an excuse for some quite amusing, notions. I’ve got a friend, now, who is most original, though she’s a very pretty woman, very popular in society, very sought-after, and she tells me that she got her cook to make one of these Japanese salads, putting in everything that young M. Dumas says you’re to in the play. Then she asked a few friends to come and taste it. I was not among the favoured few, I’m sorry to say. But she told us all about it at her next ‘at home’; it seems it was quite horrible, she made us all laugh till we cried. But of course it’s all in the telling,” Mme Cottard added, seeing that Swann still looked grave.

And imagining that it was perhaps because he had not liked Francillon: “Well, I daresay I shall be disappointed with it, after all. I don’t suppose it’s as good as the piece Mme de Crécy worships, Serge Panine. There’s a play, if you like; really deep, makes you think! But just fancy giving a recipe for a salad on the stage of the Théâtre-Français! Now, Serge Panine! But then, it’s like everything that comes from the pen of Georges Ohnet, it’s always so well written. I wonder if you know the Maître des Forges, which I like even better than Serge Panine.”

“Forgive me,” said Swann with polite irony, “but I must confess that my want of admiration is almost equally divided between those masterpieces.”

“Really, and what don’t you like about them? Are you sure you aren’t prejudiced? Perhaps you think he’s a little too sad. Well, well, what I always say is, one should never argue about plays or novels. Everyone has his own way of looking at things, and what you find detestable may be just what I like best.”

She was interrupted by Forcheville addressing Swann. While Mme Cottard was discussing Francillon, Forcheville had been expressing to Mme Verdurin his admiration for what he called the painter’s “little speech”: “Your friend has such a flow of language, such a memory!” he said to her when the painter had come to a standstill. “I’ve seldom come across anything like it. He’d make a first-rate preacher. By Jove, I wish I was like that. What with him and M. Bréchot you’ve got a couple of real characters, though as regards the gift of the gab, I’m not so sure that this one doesn’t knock a few spots off the Professor. It comes more naturally with him, it’s less studied. Although now and then he does use some words that are a bit realistic, but that’s quite the thing nowadays. Anyhow, it’s not often I’ve seen a man hold the floor as cleverly as that—‘hold the spittoon’ as we used to say in the regiment, where, by the way, we had a man he rather reminds me of. You could take anything you liked—I don’t know what—this glass, say, and he’d rattle on about it for hours; no, not this glass, that’s a silly thing to say, but something like the battle of