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By Root 1589 0

at the carriage door, only our excellent Doctor, who, obviously, has nothing of the Norse chieftain about him. But, by shutting your eyes, you might have seen the illustrious Herimund (Herimundivilla). Although, I can never understand why, people choose these roads, between Loigny and Balbec-Plage, rather than the very picturesque roads that lead from Loigny to old Balbec, Mme Verdurin has perhaps taken you out that way in her carriage. If so, you have seen Incarville, or the village of Wiscar; and Tourville, before you come to Mme Verdurin’s, is the village of Turold. Moreover, there were not only the Normans. It seems that the Germans (Alemanni) came as far as here: Aumenancourt, Alemanicurtis—don’t let us speak of it to that young officer I see there; he would be capable of refusing to visit his cousins there any more. There were also Saxons, as is proved by the springs of Sissonne (the goal of one of Mme Verdurin’s favourite excursions, and rightly so), just as in England you have Middlesex, Wessex. And what is inexplicable, it seems that the Goths, gueux as they were called, came as far as this, and even the Moors, for Mortagne comes from Mauretania. Their traces still remain at Gourville—Gothorumvilla. Some vestige of the Latins subsists also, for instance Lagny (Latiniacum).”

“I should like to know the explanation of Thorpehomme,” said M. de Charlus. “I understand homme,” he added, at which the sculptor and Cottard exchanged meaning glances. “But Thorpe?”

“Homme does not in the least mean what you are naturally led to suppose, Baron,” replied Brichot, glancing mischievously at Cottard and the sculptor. “Homme has nothing to do, in this instance, with the sex to which I am not indebted for my mother. Homme is holm, which means a small island, etc. As for Thorpe, or village, we find that in any number of words with which I have already bored our young friend. Thus in Thorpehomme there is not the name of a Norman chief, but words of the Norman language. You see how the whole of this country has been Germanised.”

“I think that is an exaggeration,” said M. de Charlus. “Yesterday I was at Orgeville.”

“This time I give you back the man I took from you in Thorpehomme, Baron. Without wishing to be pedantic, a charter of Robert I gives us, for Orgeville, Otgerivilla, the domain of Otger. All these names are those of ancient lords. Octeville-la-Venelle is a corruption of l’Avenel. The Avenels were a family of repute in the Middle Ages. Bourguenolles, where Mme Verdurin took us the other day, used to be written Bourg de Môles, for that village belonged in the eleventh century to Baudoin de Môles, as also did La Chaise-Baudoin; but here we are at Doncières.”

“Heavens, look at all these subalterns trying to get in,” said M. de Charlus with feigned alarm. “I’m thinking of you, for it doesn’t affect me, I’m getting out here.”

“You hear, Doctor?” said Brichot. “The Baron is afraid of officers passing over his body. And yet it’s quite appropriate for them to be here in strength, for Doncières is precisely the same as Saint-Cyr, Dominus Cyriacus. There are plenty of names of towns in which Sanctus and Sancta are replaced by Dominus and Domina. Besides, this peaceful military town sometimes has a spurious look of Saint-Cyr, of Versailles, and even of Fontainebleau.”

During these homeward journeys (as on the outward ones) I used to tell Albertine to put on her things, for I knew very well that at Aumenancourt, Doncières, Epreville, Saint-Vast we should be receiving brief visits from friends. Nor did I find these disagreeable, whether it might be, at Hermenonville (the domain of Herimund) a visit from M. de Chevregny, seizing the opportunity, when he had come down to meet other guests, of asking me to come over to lunch next day at Beausoleil, or (at Doncières) the sudden irruption of one of Saint-Loup’s charming friends, sent by him (if he himself was not free) to convey to me an invitation from Captain de Borodino, from the officers’ mess at the Coq-Hardi, or from the sergeants’ at the Faisan Doré. Saint-Loup often came in person,