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By Root 1787 0

us. So that this strange print which seems to us to have so little resemblance to us bears sometimes the same stamp of truth, unflattering, certainly, but profound and useful, as an X-ray photograph. Not that that is any reason why we should recognise ourselves in it. A man who is in the habit of smiling in the glass at his handsome face and stalwart figure will, if he is shown an X-ray of them, have the same suspicion of error at the sight of this rosary of bones labelled as being a picture of himself as the visitor to an art gallery who, on coming to the portrait of a girl, reads in his catalogue: “Dromedary resting.” Later on, this discrepancy in the picture of ourselves according to whether it is drawn by one’s own hand or another’s was something I was to register in the case of others than myself, living placidly in the midst of a collection of photographs which they had taken of themselves while round about them grinned frightful faces, invisible to them as a rule, but stunning them with amazement if some chance revealed them to them, saying: “It’s you.”

A few years earlier I should have been only too glad to tell Mme Swann in what connexion I had behaved so tenderly towards M. de Norpois, since the connexion had been my desire to get to know her. But I no longer felt this desire, since I was no longer in love with Gilberte. At the same time I found it difficult to identify Mme Swann with the lady in pink of my childhood. Accordingly I spoke of the woman who was on my mind at the moment.

“Did you see the Duchesse de Guermantes just now?” I asked Mme Swann.

But since the Duchess did not greet Mme Swann when they met, the latter chose to appear to regard her as a person of no interest, whose presence in a room one did not even notice.

“I don’t know; I didn’t realise she was here,” she replied sourly, using an expression borrowed from English.

I was anxious nevertheless for information with regard not only to Mme de Guermantes but to all the people who came in contact with her, and (for all the world like Bloch), with the tactlessness of people who seek in their conversations not to give pleasure to others but to elucidate, from sheer egoism, points that are of interest to themselves, in my effort to form an exact idea of the life of Mme de Guermantes I questioned Mme de Villeparisis about Mme Leroi.

“Oh, yes, I know who you mean,” she replied with an affectation of contempt, “the daughter of those rich timber merchants. I’ve heard that she’s begun to go about quite a lot lately, but I must explain to you that I’m rather old now to make new acquaintances. I’ve known such interesting, such delightful people in my time that really I don’t believe Mme Leroi would add much to what I already have.”

Mme de Marsantes, who was playing lady-in-waiting to the Marquise, presented me to the Prince, and scarcely had she finished doing so than M. de Norpois also presented me in the most glowing terms. Perhaps he found it opportune to pay me a compliment which could in no way damage his credit since I had just been introduced; perhaps it was that he thought that a foreigner, even so distinguished a foreigner, was unfamiliar with French society and might think that he was being introduced to a young man of fashion; perhaps it was to exercise one of his prerogatives, that of adding the weight of his personal recommendation as an ambassador, or in his taste for the archaic to revive in the Prince’s honour the old custom, flattering to his rank, whereby two sponsors were necessary if one wished to be presented to a royal personage.

Mme de Villeparisis appealed to M. de Norpois, feeling it imperative that I should have his assurance that she had nothing to regret in not knowing Mme Leroi.

“Isn’t it true, M. l’Ambassadeur, that Mme Leroi is of no interest, very inferior to all the people who come here, and that I’m quite right not to have cultivated her?”

Whether from independence or because he was tired, M. de Norpois replied merely in a bow full of respect but devoid of meaning.

“Do you know,” went on Mme de Villeparisis with