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By Root 1916 0

the air in a menacing fashion and, thinking that he was making an excellent joke, said: “You are not to make eyes at me like that, do you hear?” and, turning to Brichot: “He has a quaint little face, that boy, his nose is rather fun;” then, rounding off his pleasantry, or yielding to a desire, he lowered his forefinger horizontally, hesitated for an instant, and, unable to control himself any longer, thrust it irresistibly towards the footman and touched the tip of his nose, saying “Pif!,” then walked into the drawing-room followed by Brichot, myself and Saniette, who told us that Princess Sherbatoff had died at six o’clock. “That’s a rum card,” the footman said to himself, and inquired of his companions whether the Baron was a joker or a madman. “It’s just a way he has,” said the butler (who regarded the Baron as slightly “touched,” “a bit barmy”), “but he’s one of Madame’s friends for whom I’ve always had the greatest respect, he has a good heart.”

“Will you be returning to Incarville this year?” Brichot asked me. “I believe that our hostess has taken La Raspelière again, although she had some trouble with her landlords. But that’s nothing, a mere passing cloud,” he added in the optimistic tone of the newspapers that say: “Mistakes have been made, it is true, but who does not make mistakes at times?” But I remembered the state of anguish in which I had left Balbec, and felt no desire to return there. I kept putting off to the morrow my plans for Albertine.

“Why, of course he’s coming back, we need him, he’s indispensable to us,” declared M. de Charlus with the dictatorial and uncomprehending egoism of benevolence.

M. Verdurin, to whom we expressed our sympathy over Princess Sherbatoff, said: “Yes, I believe she is rather ill.”

“No, no, she died at six o’clock,” exclaimed Saniette.

“Oh you, you exaggerate everything,” was M. Verdurin’s brutal retort, for, the evening not having been cancelled, he preferred the hypothesis of illness, thereby unconsciously imitating the Duc de Guermantes.

Saniette, fearful of catching cold, for the outer door was continually being opened, stood waiting resignedly for someone to take his hat and coat.

“What are you hanging about there for like a whipped dog?” M. Verdurin asked him.

“I am waiting until one of the persons who are charged with the cloakroom can take my coat and give me a number.”

“What’s that you say?” demanded M. Verdurin with a stern expression. “‘Charged with the cloakroom’? Are you going gaga? ‘In charge of the cloakroom’ is what we say. Have we got to teach you to speak your own language, like someone who’s had a stroke?”

“Charged with a thing is the correct form,” murmured Saniette in a wheezy tone; “the abbé Le Batteux …”

“You madden me, you do,” cried M. Verdurin in a voice of thunder. “How you do wheeze! Have you just walked up six flights of stairs?”

The effect of M. Verdurin’s rudeness was that the servants in the cloakroom allowed other guests to take precedence over Saniette and, when he tried to hand over his things, said to him: “Wait for your turn, Sir, don’t be in such a hurry.”

“There’s system for you, there’s competence. That’s right, my lads,” said M. Verdurin with an approving smile, in order to encourage them in their inclination to keep Saniette waiting till last. “Come along,” he said to us, “the creature wants us all to catch our death hanging about in his beloved draught. Come and warm up in the drawing-room. ‘Charged with the cloakroom,’ indeed. What an idiot!”

“He is inclined to be a little precious, but he’s not a bad fellow,” said Brichot.

“I never said he was a bad fellow, I said he was an idiot,” M. Verdurin retorted sourly.

Meanwhile Mme Verdurin was in deep conclave with Cottard and Ski. Morel had just declined (because M. de Charlus could not be present) an invitation from some friends of hers to whom she had promised the services of the violinist. The reason for Morel’s refusal, which we shall presently see reinforced by others of a far more serious kind, might have found its justification in a habit peculiar to the leisured