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By Root 1405 0

locomotion as a not very mobile cloud, was slowly mounting the green slope of the cliff of Criquetot. Finally the little train, which it had preceded by taking a vertical course, arrived in its turn, at a leisurely crawl. The passengers who were waiting to board it stepped back to make way for it, but without hurrying, knowing that they were dealing with a good-natured, almost human stroller, who, guided like the bicycle of a beginner by the obliging signals of the station-master, under the capable supervision of the engine-driver, was in no danger of running over anybody, and would come to a halt at the proper place.

My telegram explained the Verdurins’ telephone message and had been all the more opportune since Wednesday (the next day but one happened to be a Wednesday) was the day set apart for big dinner-parties by Mme Verdurin, at La Raspelière as in Paris, a fact of which I was unaware. Mme Verdurin did not give “dinners,” but she had “Wednesdays.” These Wednesdays were works of art. While fully conscious that they had not their match anywhere, Mme Verdurin introduced shades of distinction between them. “Last Wednesday wasn’t as good as the one before,” she would say. “But I believe the next will be one of the most successful I’ve ever given.” Sometimes she went so far as to admit: “This Wednesday wasn’t worthy of the others. But I have a big surprise for you next week.” In the closing weeks of the Paris season, before leaving for the country, the Mistress would announce the approaching end of the Wednesdays. It gave her an opportunity to spur on the faithful. “There are only three more Wednesdays left,” or “Only two more,” she would say, in the same tone as though the world were coming to an end. “You aren’t going to let us down next Wednesday, for the finale.” But this finale was a sham, for she would announce: “Officially, there will be no more Wednesdays. Today was the last for this year. But I shall be at home all the same on Wednesday. We’ll celebrate Wednesday by ourselves; I dare say these little private Wednesdays will be the nicest of all.” At La Raspelière, the Wednesdays were of necessity restricted, and since, if they met a friend who was passing that way, they would invite him for any evening he chose, almost every day of the week became a Wednesday. “I don’t remember all the guests, but I know there’s Madame la Marquise de Camembert,” the lift-boy had told me; his memory of our discussion of the name Cambremer had not succeeded in conclusively supplanting that of the old word, whose syllables, familiar and full of meaning, came to the young employee’s rescue when he was flummoxed by this difficult name, and were immediately preferred and readopted by him, not from laziness or as an old and ineradicable usage, but because of the need for logic and clarity which they satisfied.

We hastened in search of an empty carriage in which I could hold Albertine in my arms throughout the journey. Having failed to find one, we got into a compartment in which there was already installed a lady with a massive face, old and ugly, and a masculine expression, very much in her Sunday best, who was reading the Revue des Deux Mondes. Notwithstanding her vulgarity, she was ladylike in her gestures, and I amused myself wondering to what social category she could belong; I at once concluded that she must be the manageress of some large brothel, a procuress on holiday. Her face and her manner proclaimed the fact aloud. Only, I had hitherto been unaware that such ladies read the Revue des Deux Mondes. Albertine drew my attention to her with a wink and a smile. The lady wore an air of extreme dignity; and as I, for my part, was inwardly aware that I was invited, two days hence, to the house of the celebrated Mme Verdurin at the terminal point of the little railway line, that at an intermediate station I was awaited by Robert de Saint-Loup, and that a little further on I would have given great pleasure to Mme de Cambremer by going to stay at Féterne, my eyes sparkled with irony as I gazed at this self-important lady who seemed