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By Root 1310 0

“M. Swann, pray allow me to introduce our friend Saniette to you”) but aroused in Saniette himself a warmth of devotion, which, however, the Verdurins never disclosed to Swann, since Saniette rather irritated them, and they did not feel inclined to provide him with friends. On the other hand the Verdurins were extremely touched by Swann’s next request, for he felt that he must ask to meet the pianist’s aunt. She wore a black dress, as was her invariable custom, for she believed that a woman always looked well in black and that nothing could be more distinguished; but her face was exceedingly red, as it always was for some time after a meal. She bowed to Swann with deference, but drew herself up again with great dignity. As she was entirely uneducated, and was afraid of making mistakes in grammar and pronunciation, she used purposely to speak in an indistinct and garbling manner, thinking that if she should make a slip it would be so buried in the surrounding confusion that no one could be certain whether she had actually made it or not; with the result that her talk was a sort of continuous, blurred expectoration, out of which would emerge, at rare intervals, the few sounds and syllables of which she felt sure. Swann supposed himself entitled to poke a little mild fun at her in conversation with M. Verdurin, who, however, was rather put out.

“She’s such an excellent woman!” he rejoined. “I grant you that she’s not exactly brilliant; but I assure you that she can be most agreeable when you chat with her alone.”

“I’m sure she can,” Swann hastened to concede. “All I meant was that she hardly struck me as ‘distinguished,’ ” he went on, isolating the epithet in the inverted commas of his tone, “and that, on the whole, is something of a compliment.”

“For instance,” said M. Verdurin, “now this will surprise you: she writes quite delightfully. You’ve never heard her nephew play? It’s admirable, eh, Doctor? Would you like me to ask him to play something, M. Swann?”

“Why, it would be a joy …” Swann was beginning to reply, when the doctor broke in derisively. Having once heard it said, and never having forgotten, that in general conversation over-emphasis and the use of formal expressions were out of date, whenever he heard a solemn word used seriously, as the word “joy” had just been used by Swann, he felt that the speaker had been guilty of pomposity. And if, moreover, the word in question happened to occur also in what he called an old “tag,” however common it might still be in current usage, the doctor jumped to the conclusion that the remark which was about to be made was ridiculous, and completed it ironically with the cliché he assumed the speaker was about to perpetrate, although in reality it had never entered his mind.

“A joy for ever!” he exclaimed mischievously, throwing up his arms in a grandiloquent gesture.

M. Verdurin could not help laughing.

“What are all those good people laughing at over there? There’s no sign of brooding melancholy down in your corner,” shouted Mme Verdurin. “You don’t suppose I find it very amusing to be stuck up here by myself on the stool of repentance,” she went on with mock peevishness, in a babyish tone of voice.

Mme Verdurin was seated on a high Swedish chair of waxed pinewood, which a violinist from that country had given her, and which she kept in her drawing-room although in appearance it suggested a work-stand and clashed with the really good antique furniture which she had besides; but she made a point of keeping on view the presents which her “faithful” were in the habit of making her from time to time, so that the donors might have the pleasure of seeing them there when they came to the house. She tried to persuade them to confine their tributes to flowers and sweets, which had at least the merit of mortality; but she never succeeded, and the house was gradually filled with a collection of foot-warmers, cushions, clocks, screens, barometers and vases, a constant repetition and a boundless incongruity of useless but indestructible objects.

From this lofty perch she would take