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At this moment the meal was interrupted by one of the party whom I have forgotten to mention, an eminent Norwegian philosopher who spoke French very well but very slowly, for the twofold reason that, in the first place, having learned the language only recently and not wishing to make mistakes (though he did make a few), he referred each word to a sort of mental dictionary, and secondly, being a metaphysician, he always thought of what he intended to say while he was saying it, which, even in a Frenchman, is a cause of slowness. For the rest, he was a delightful person, although similar in appearance to many other people, save in one respect. This man who was so slow in his diction (there was an interval of silence after every word) developed a startling rapidity in escaping from the room as soon as he had said good-bye. His haste made one suppose, the first time one saw it, that he was suffering from colic or some even more urgent need.

“My dear—colleague,” he said to Brichot, after deliberating in his mind whether colleague was the correct term, “I have a sort of—desire to know whether there are other trees in the—nomenclature of your beautiful French—Latin—Norman tongue. Madame” (he meant Mme Verdurin, although he dared not look at her) “has told me that you know everything. Is not this precisely the moment?”

“No, it’s the moment for eating,” interrupted Mme Verdurin, who saw the dinner becoming interminable.

“Very well,” the Scandinavian replied, bowing his head over his plate with a resigned and sorrowful smile. “But I must point out to Madame that if I have permitted myself this questionnaire—pardon me, this questation—it is because I have to return tomorrow to Paris to dine at the Tour d’Argent or at the Hôtel Meurice. My French—confrère—M. Boutroux is to address us there about certain séances of spiritualism—pardon me, certain spirituous evocations—which he has verified.”

“The Tour d’Argent is not nearly as good as they make out,” said Mme Verdurin sourly. “In fact, I’ve had some disgusting dinners there.”

“But am I mistaken, is not the food that one consumes at Madame’s table an example of the finest French cookery?”

“Well, it’s not positively bad,” replied Mme Verdurin, mollified. “And if you come next Wednesday, it will be better.”

“But I am leaving on Monday for Algiers, and from there I am going to the Cape. And when I am at the Cape of Good Hope, I shall no longer be able to meet my illustrious colleague—pardon me, I shall no longer be able to meet my confrère.”

And he set to work obediently, after offering these retrospective apologies, to devour his food at a headlong pace. But Brichot was only too delighted to be able to furnish other vegetable etymologies, and replied, so greatly interesting the Norwegian that he again stopped eating, but with a sign to the servants that they might remove his full plate and go on to the next course.

“One of the Immortals,” said Brichot, “is named Houssaye, or a place planted with holly-trees; in the name of a brilliant diplomat, d’Ormesson, you will find the elm, the ulmus beloved of Virgil, which gave its name to the town of Ulm; in the names of his colleagues, M. de la Boulaye, the birch (bouleau), M. d’Aunay, the alder (aune), M. de Bussière, the box-tree (buis), M. Albaret, the sapwood (aubier)” (I made a mental note that I must tell this to Céleste), “M. de Cholet, the cabbage (chou), and the apple-tree (pommier) in the name of M. dela Pommeraye, whose lectures we used to attend, do you remember, Saniette, in the days when the worthy Porel had been sent to the furthest ends of the earth, as Proconsul in Odéonia?”

On hearing the name Saniette on Brichot’s lips, M. Verdurin glanced at his wife and at Cottard with an ironical smile which disconcerted their timid guest.

“You said that Cholet was derived from chou,” I remarked to Brichot. “Does the name of a station I passed before reaching Doncières, Saint-Frichoux, also come from chou?”

“No, Saint-Frichoux is Sanctus Fructuosus, as