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By Root 1561 0

sort of relative of the Verdurins, who were quite fond of him. But he spoke contemptuously of the famous Wednesdays, adding that M. Verdurin had never even heard of dress-clothes, which made it a horrid bore when one ran into him in certain “music-halls” where one would very much rather not be greeted with “Well, you young rascal” by an old fellow in a jacket and black tie, like a village notary.

Octave left us, and soon it was Andrée’s turn, when we came to her villa, into which she vanished without having uttered a single word to me during the whole of our walk. I regretted her departure all the more because, while I was complaining to Albertine how cold her friend had been towards me, and was comparing in my mind this difficulty which Albertine seemed to find in bringing me into contact with her friends with the hostility that Elstir, in attempting to fulfil my wish, seemed to have encountered on that first afternoon, two girls came by to whom I lifted my hat, the misses d’Ambresac, whom Albertine greeted also.

I felt that my position in relation to Albertine would be improved by this meeting. They were the daughters of a kinswoman of Mme de Villeparisis, who was also a friend of Mme de Luxembourg. M. and Mme d’Ambresac, who had a small villa at Balbec and were immensely rich, led the simplest of lives, and always went about in the same clothes, he in the same jacket, she in a dark dress. Both of them used to make sweeping bows to my grandmother, which never led to anything further. The daughters, who were very pretty, were dressed more elegantly, but it was an elegance more suited to Paris than to the seaside. With their long skirts and large hats, they seemed to belong to a different race from Albertine. She, I discovered, knew all about them.

“Oh, so you know the little d’Ambresacs, do you? Well, well, you do have some grand friends. But they’re very simple really,” she went on as though the two things were mutually exclusive. “They’re very nice, but so well brought up that they aren’t allowed near the Casino, mainly because of us, because we’re too badly behaved. You find them attractive, do you? Well, it all depends on what you like. They’re real goody-goodies. Perhaps there’s a certain charm in that. If you like goody-goodies, they’re all that you could wish for. There must be some attraction, because one of them has got engaged already to the Marquis de Saint-Loup. Which was a cruel blow to the younger one, who was madly in love with that young man. As far as I’m concerned, the way they purse their lips when they talk is enough to madden me. And then they dress in the most absurd way. Fancy going to play golf in silk frocks! At their age, they dress more pretentiously than grown-up women who really know about clothes. Look at Mme Elstir. There’s a well-dressed woman if you like.” I answered that she had struck me as being dressed with the utmost simplicity. Albertine laughed.

“She’s very simply turned out, I admit, but she dresses wonderfully, and to get what you call simplicity costs her a fortune.”

Mme Elstir’s elegance passed unnoticed by anyone who had not a sober and unerring taste in matters of dress. This I lacked. Elstir possessed it in a supreme degree, so Albertine told me. I had not suspected this, nor that the beautiful but quite simple objects which littered his studio were treasures long desired by him which he had followed from sale-room to sale-room, knowing all their history, until he had made enough money to be able to acquire them. But as to this Albertine, being as ignorant as myself, could not enlighten me. Whereas when it came to clothes, prompted by a coquettish instinct and perhaps by the regretful longing of a penniless girl who is able to appreciate with greater disinterestedness, more delicacy and discrimination, in the rich the things that she will never be able to afford for herself, she spoke very interestingly about the refinement of Elstir’s taste, so difficult to satisfy that all women appeared to him badly dressed and, attaching infinite importance to proportions and shades