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“But you yourself, Oriane, have taught me things I had no idea of,” the Princesse de Parme assured her.

“I must explain to your Highness that it’s Swann who has always talked to me a great deal about botany. Sometimes when we thought it would be too boring to go to an afternoon party we would set off for the country, and he would show me extraordinary marriages between flowers, which was far more amusing than going to human marriages—no wedding-breakfast and no crowd in the sacristy. We never had time to go very far. Now that motor-cars have come in, it would be delightful. Unfortunately, in the meantime he himself has made an even more astonishing marriage, which makes everything very difficult. Ah, Ma’am, life is a dreadful business, we spend our whole time doing things that bore us, and when by chance we come across somebody with whom we could go and look at something really interesting, he has to make a marriage like Swann’s. Faced with the alternatives of giving up my botanical expeditions and being obliged to call upon a degrading person, I chose the first of these two calamities. Actually, though, there’s no need to go quite so far. It seems that even here, in my own little bit of garden, more improper things happen in broad daylight than at midnight . . . in the Bois de Boulogne! Only they attract no attention, because between flowers it’s all done quite simply—you see a little orange shower, or else a very dusty fly coming to wipe its feet or take a bath before crawling into a flower. And that does the trick!”

“The cabinet the plant is standing on is splendid, too; it’s Empire, I believe,” said the Princess, who, not being familiar with the works of Darwin and his followers, was unable to grasp the point of the Duchess’s pleasantries.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it? I’m so glad your Highness likes it,” replied the Duchess, “it’s a magnificent piece. I must tell you that I’ve always adored the Empire style, even when it wasn’t in fashion. I remember at Guermantes I got into terrible disgrace with my mother-in-law because I told them to bring down from the attics all the splendid Empire furniture Basin had inherited from the Montesquious, and used it to furnish the wing we lived in.”

M. de Guermantes smiled. He must nevertheless have remembered that the course of events had been very different. But, the witticisms of the Princesse des Laumes on the subject of her mother-in-law’s bad taste having been a tradition during the short time in which the Prince had been in love with his wife, his love for the latter had been outlasted by a certain contempt for the intellectual inferiority of the former, a contempt which, however, went hand in hand with considerable attachment and respect.

“The Iénas have the same armchair with Wedgwood medallions. It’s a fine piece, but I prefer mine,” said the Duchess, with the same air of impartiality as if she had not been the owner of either of these two pieces of furniture. “I admit, of course, that they’ve got some marvellous things which I haven’t.”

The Princesse de Parme remained silent.

“But it’s quite true; your Highness hasn’t seen their collection. Oh, you ought really to come there one day with me, it’s one of the most magnificent things in Paris. You’d say it was a museum come to life.”

And since this suggestion was one of the most “Guermantes” of the Duchess’s audacities, inasmuch as the Iénas were for the Princesse de Parme rank usurpers, their son bearing like her own the title of Duc de Guastalla, Mme de Guermantes in thus launching it could not refrain (so much did the love that she bore her own originality prevail over the deference due to the Princesse de Parme) from glancing round at her other guests with an amused smile. They too made an effort to smile, at once alarmed, amazed and above all delighted to think that they were being witnesses of Oriane’s very “latest” and could serve it up “piping hot.” They were only half shocked, knowing that the Duchess had the knack of throwing all the Courvoisier prejudices