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By Root 1287 0

of a woman. Swann, who was fond of Saniette, felt bound to supply him with a few facts illustrative of the Duke’s culture proving that such ignorance on his part was literally impossible; but suddenly he stopped short, realising that Saniette needed no proof, but knew already that the story was untrue for the simple reason that he had just invented it. The worthy man suffered acutely from the Verdurins’ always finding him so boring; and as he was conscious of having been more than ordinarily dull this evening, he had made up his mind that he would succeed in being amusing at least once before the end of dinner. He capitulated so quickly, looked so wretched at the sight of his castle in ruins, and replied in so craven a tone to Swann, appealing to him not to persist in a refutation which was now superfluous—“All right; all right; anyhow, even if I’m mistaken it’s not a crime, I hope”—that Swann longed to be able to console him by insisting that the story was indubitably true and exquisitely funny. The doctor, who had been listening, had an idea that it was the right moment to interject “Se non é vero,” but he was not quite certain of the words, and was afraid of getting them wrong.

After dinner, Forcheville went up to the doctor.

“She can’t have been at all bad looking, Mme Verdurin; and besides, she’s a woman you can really talk to, which is the main thing. Of course she’s getting a bit broad in the beam. But Mme de Crécy! There’s a little woman who knows what’s what, all right. Upon my word and soul, you can see at a glance she’s got her wits about her, that girl. We’re speaking of Mme de Crécy,” he explained, as M. Verdurin joined them, his pipe in his mouth. “I should say that, as a specimen of the female form …”

“I’d rather have it in my bed than a slap with a wet fish,” the words came tumbling from Cottard, who had for some time been waiting in vain for Forcheville to pause for breath so that he might get in this hoary old joke for which there might not be another cue if the conversation should take a different turn and which he now produced with that excessive spontaneity and confidence that seeks to cover up the coldness and the anxiety inseparable from a prepared recitation. Forcheville knew and saw the joke, and was thoroughly amused. As for M. Verdurin, he was unsparing of his merriment, having recently discovered a way of expressing it by a convention that was different from his wife’s but equally simple and obvious. Scarcely had he begun the movement of head and shoulders of a man shaking with laughter than he would begin at once to cough, as though, in laughing too violently, he had swallowed a mouthful of pipe-smoke. And by keeping the pipe firmly in his mouth he could prolong indefinitely the dumb-show of suffocation and hilarity. Thus he and Mme Verdurin (who, at the other side of the room, where the painter was telling her a story, was shutting her eyes preparatory to flinging her face into her hands) resembled two masks in a theatre each representing Comedy in a different way.

M. Verdurin had been wiser than he knew in not taking his pipe out of his mouth, for Cottard, having occasion to leave the room for a moment, murmured a witty euphemism which he had recently acquired and repeated now whenever he had to go to the place in question: “I must just go and see the Duc d’Aumale for a minute,” so drolly that M. Verdurin’s cough began all over again.

“Do take your pipe out of your mouth. Can’t you see that you’ll choke if you try to bottle up your laughter like that,” counselled Mme Verdurin as she came round with a tray of liqueurs.

“What a delightful man your husband is; he’s devilish witty,” declared Forcheville to Mme Cottard. “Thank you, thank you, an old soldier like me can never say no to a drink.”

“M. de Forcheville thinks Odette charming,” M. Verdurin told his wife.

“Ah, as a matter of fact she’d like to have lunch with you one day. We must arrange it, but don’t on any account let Swann hear about it. He spoils everything, don’t you know. I don’t mean to say that you’re not to come to dinner