In Search of Lost Time, Volume II_ Within a Budding Grove - Marcel Proust [105]
Meanwhile Mme Bontemps, who had been heard a hundred times to declare that nothing would induce her to go to the Verdurins’, delighted at being asked to the famous Wednesdays, was working out how she could manage to attend as many of them as possible. She was not aware that Mme Verdurin liked people not to miss a single one; moreover she was one of those people whose company is but little sought after who, when a hostess invites them to a series of “at homes,” instead of going to her house without more ado—like those who know that it is always a pleasure to see them—whenever they have a moment to spare and feel inclined to go out, deny themselves for example the first evening and the third, imagining that their absence will be noticed, and save themselves up for the second and fourth, unless it should happen that, having heard from a trustworthy source that the third is to be a particularly brilliant party, they reverse the original order, assuring their hostess that “most unfortunately, we had another engagement last week.” So Mme Bontemps was calculating how many Wednesdays there could still be left before Easter, and by what means she might manage to secure an extra one and yet not appear to be thrusting herself upon her hostess. She relied upon Mme Cottard, whom she would have with her in the carriage going home, to give her a few hints.
“Oh, Mme Bontemps, I see you getting up to go; it’s very bad of you to give the signal for flight like that! You owe me some compensation for not turning up last Thursday . . . Come, sit down again, just for a minute. You can’t possibly be going anywhere else before dinner. Really, you won’t let yourself be tempted?” went on Mme Swann, and, as she held out a plate of cakes, “You know, they’re not at all bad, these little horrors. They may not be much to look at, but just you taste one and you’ll see.”
“On the contrary, they look quite delicious,” broke in Mme Cottard. “In your house, Odette, one is never short of victuals. I have no need to ask to see the trade-mark; I know you get everything from Rebattet. I must say that I am more eclectic. For sweets and cakes and so forth I repair, as often as not, to Bourbonneux. But I agree that they simply don’t know what an ice means. Rebattet for everything iced, and syrups and sorbets; they’re past masters. As my husband would say, they’re the ne plus ultra.”
“Oh, but these are home-made. You won’t, really?” “I shan’t be able to eat a scrap of dinner,” pleaded Mme Bontemps, “but I’ll sit down again for a moment. You know, I adore talking to a clever woman like you.”
“You’ll think me highly indiscreet, Odette, but I should so like to know what you thought of the hat Mme Trombert had on. I know, of course, that big hats are the fashion just now. All the same, wasn’t it just the least little bit exaggerated? And compared to the hat she came to see me in the other day, the one she was wearing just now was microscopic!” “Oh no, I’m not at all clever,” said Odette, thinking that this sounded well. “I am a perfect simpleton, I believe everything people say, and worry myself to death over the least thing.” And she insinuated that she had, just at first, suffered terribly from having married a man like Swann who had a separate life of his own and was unfaithful to her.
Meanwhile the Prince d’Agrigente, having caught the words “I’m not at all clever,” thought it incumbent on him to protest, but unfortunately lacked the gift of repartee. “Fiddlesticks!” cried Mme Bontemps, “not clever, you!” “That’s just what I was saying to myself—‘What do I hear?’,” the Prince clutched at this straw. “My ears must have played me false!”
“No, I assure you,” went on Odette, “I’m really just an ordinary woman, very easily shocked, full of prejudices, living in my own little groove and dreadfully ignorant.” And then, in case