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By Root 1904 0

so that his displeasure should not be taken seriously, “but for heaven’s sake don’t speak of her wit. I could do without having such a witty wife. You’re probably alluding to the shocking pun she made about my brother Palamède,” he went on, knowing quite well that the Princess and the rest of the family had not yet heard this pun, and delighted to have an opportunity of showing off his wife. “In the first place I consider it unworthy of a person who has occasionally, I must admit, said some quite good things, to make bad puns, but especially about my brother, who is very touchy, and if it’s going to lead to bad blood between us, that would really be too much of a good thing.”

“But we’ve no idea! One of Oriane’s puns? It’s sure to be delicious. Oh, do tell us!”

“No, no,” the Duke went on, still surly though with a broader smile, “I’m delighted you haven’t heard it. Seriously, I’m very fond of my brother.”

“Look here, Basin,” the Duchess would break in, the moment having come for her to take up her husband’s cue, “I can’t think why you should say that it might annoy Palamède, you know quite well it would do nothing of the sort. He’s far too intelligent to be offended by a stupid joke which has nothing offensive about it. You’ll make them think I said something nasty; I simply made a remark which wasn’t in the least funny, it’s you who make it seem important by getting so indignant. I don’t understand you.”

“You’re being horribly tantalising. What’s it all about?”

“Oh, obviously nothing serious!” cried M. de Guermantes. “You may have heard that my brother offered to give Brézé, the place he got from his wife, to his sister Marsantes.”

“Yes, but we were told she didn’t want it, that she didn’t care for that part of the country, that the climate didn’t suit her.”

“Precisely. Well, someone was telling my wife all that and saying that if my brother was giving this place to our sister it wasn’t so much to please her as to tease her. ‘He’s such a teaser, Charlus,’ was what they actually said. Well, you know Brézé is really impressive, I should say it’s worth millions, it used to be part of the crown lands, it includes one of the finest forests in France. There are plenty of people who would be only too delighted to be teased to that tune. And so when she heard the words ‘teaser’ applied to Charlus because he was giving away such a magnificent property, Oriane couldn’t help exclaiming, quite involuntarily, I must admit, without the slightest suggestion of malice, for it came out like a flash of lightning: ‘Teaser, teaser? Then he must be Teaser Augustus!’ You understand,” he went on, resuming his surly tone, having first cast a sweeping glance round the room in order to judge the effect of his wife’s witticism—and in some doubt as to the extent of Mme d’Epinay’s acquaintance with ancient history, “you understand, it’s an allusion to Augustus Caesar, the Roman Emperor. It’s too stupid, a bad play on words, quite unworthy of Oriane. And then, you see, I’m more circumspect than my wife. Even if I haven’t her wit, I think of the consequences. If anyone should be so ill-advised as to repeat the remark to my brother there’ll be the devil to pay. All the more so,” he went on, “because as you know Palamède is very high and mighty, and also very captious, given to tittle-tattle, so that quite apart from the question of his giving away Brézé you must admit that ‘Teaser Augustus’ suits him down to the ground. That’s what justifies my wife’s quips; even when she stoops to feeble puns, she’s always witty and does really describe people rather well.”

And so, thanks on one occasion to “Teaser Augustus,” on another to something else, the visits paid by the Duke and Duchess to their kinsfolk replenished the stock of anecdotes, and the excitement they had caused lasted long after the departure of the sparkling lady and her impresario. The hostess would begin by going over again with the privileged persons who had been at the entertainment (those who had remained) the clever things that Oriane had said. “You hadn’t heard ‘Teaser Augustus’?”