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By Root 1858 0

’s story of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand or the details of sexual perversion among birds. It would have been impossible to catch her out on any of the most recent German publications, whether they dealt with political economy, mental aberrations, the various forms of onanism, or the philosophy of Epicurus. She was, incidentally, a dangerous person to listen to, for, perpetually in error, she would point out to you as being of the loosest morals women of irreproachable virtue, would put you on your guard against a man with the most honourable intentions, and would tell you anecdotes of the sort that seem always to have come out of a book, not so much because they are serious as because they are so wildly improbable.

She was at this period little received in society. For some weeks now she had been frequenting the houses of women of real social brilliance, such as the Duchesse de Guermantes, but in general had confined herself, of necessity, as regards the noblest families, to obscure scions whom the Guermantes no longer called on. She hoped to prove her social credentials by quoting the most historic names of the little-known people who were her friends. At once M. de Guermantes, thinking that she was referring to people who frequently dined at his table, quivered with joy at finding himself once more in sight of a landmark and uttered the rallying-cry: “But he’s Oriane’s cousin! I know him as well as I know my own name. He lives in the Rue Vaneau. His mother was Mlle d’Uzès.” The Ambassadress was obliged to admit that her specimen had been drawn from smaller game. She tried to connect her friends with those of M. de Guermantes by means of a detour. “I know quite well who you mean. No, it’s not those ones, they’re cousins.” But this reflux launched by the unfortunate Ambassadress ran but a little way. For M. de Guermantes, losing interest, answered: “Oh, then I don’t know who you’re talking about.” The Ambassadress offered no reply, for if she never knew anyone nearer than the “cousins” of those whom she ought to have known in person, very often these cousins were not even related at all. Then, from the lips of M. de Guermantes, would flow a fresh wave of “But she’s Oriane’s cousin!”—words which seemed to have for the Duke the same practical value in each of his sentences as certain epithets which the Roman poets found convenient because they provided them with dactyls or spondees for their hexameters.

At least the explosion of “But she’s Oriane’s cousin!” appeared to me quite natural when applied to the Princesse de Guermantes, who was indeed very closely related to the Duchess. The Ambassadress did not seem to care for this Princess. She said to me in an undertone: “She is stupid. No, she’s not so beautiful as all that. That reputation is usurped. Anyhow,” she went on, with an air at once considered, dismissive and decisive, “I find her extremely antipathetic.” But often the cousinship extended a great deal further, Mme de Guermantes making it a point of honour to address as “Aunt” ladies with whom it would have been impossible to find her an ancestress in common without going back at least to Louis XV; just as, whenever the “hardness” of the times brought it about that a multimillionairess married a prince whose great-great-grandfather had married, as had Oriane’s also, a daughter of Louvois, one of the chief joys of the fair American was to be able, after a first visit to the Hôtel de Guermantes, where she was, incidentally, somewhat coolly received and critically dissected, to say “Aunt” to Mme de Guermantes, who allowed her to do so with a maternal smile. But little did it matter to me what “birth” meant for M. de Guermantes and M. de Monserfeuil; in the conversations which they held on the subject I sought only a poetic pleasure. Without being conscious of it themselves, they procured me this pleasure as might a couple of farmers or sailors speaking of the soil or the tides, realities too little detached from their own lives for them to be capable of enjoying the beauty which personally I undertook to extract from