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By Root 1186 0

had not left him with very little time to spare, would gladly have come to them more often. For he had the sort of curiosity and superstitious worship of life which, combined with a certain scepticism with regard to the object of their studies, earns for some intelligent men of whatever profession, doctors who do not believe in medicine, schoolmasters who do not believe in Latin exercises, the reputation of having broad, brilliant and indeed superior minds. He affected, when at Mme Verdurin’s, to choose his illustrations from among the most topical subjects of the day when he spoke of philosophy or history, principally because he regarded those sciences as no more than a preparation for life, and imagined that he was seeing put into practice by the “little clan” what hitherto he had known only from books, and perhaps also because, having had instilled into him as a boy, and having unconsciously preserved, a reverence for certain subjects, he thought that he was casting aside the scholar’s gown when he ventured to treat those subjects with a conversational licence which in fact seemed daring to him only because the folds of the gown still clung.

Early in the course of the dinner, when M. de Forcheville, seated on the right of Mme Verdurin who in the “newcomer’s” honour had taken great pains with her toilet, observed to her: ‘Quite original, that white dress,” the doctor, who had never taken his eyes off him so curious was he to learn the nature and attributes of what he called a “de,” and who was on the look-out for an opportunity of attracting his attention and coming into closer contact with him, caught in its flight the adjective “blanche” and, his eyes still glued to his plate, snapped out, “Blanche? Blanche of Castile?” then, without moving his head, shot a furtive glance to right and left of him, smiling uncertainly. While Swann, by the painful and futile effort which he made to smile, showed that he thought the pun absurd, Forcheville had shown at one and the same time that he could appreciate its subtlety and that he was a man of the world, by keeping within its proper limits a mirth the spontaneity of which had charmed Mme Verdurin.

“What do you make of a scientist like that?” she asked Forcheville. “You can’t talk seriously to him for two minutes on end. Is that the sort of thing you tell them at your hospital?” she went on, turning to the doctor. “They must have some pretty lively times there, if that’s the case. I can see that I shall have to get taken in as a patient!”

“I think I heard the Doctor speak of that old termagant, Blanche of Castile, if I may so express myself. Am I not right, Madame?” Brichot appealed to Mme Verdurin, who, swooning with merriment, her eyes tightly closed, had buried her face in her hands, from behind which muffled screams could be heard.

“Good gracious, Madame, I would not dream of shocking the reverent-minded, if there are any such around this table, sub rosa … I recognise, moreover, that our ineffable and Athenian—oh, how infinitely Athenian—republic is capable of honouring, in the person of that obscurantist old she-Capet, the first of our strong-arm chiefs of police. Yes, indeed, my dear host, yes indeed, yes indeed!” he repeated in his ringing voice, which sounded a separate note for each syllable, in reply to a protest from M. Verdurin. “The Chronique de Saint-Denis, and the authenticity of its information is beyond question, leaves us no room for doubt on that point. No one could be more fitly chosen as patron by a secularised proletariat than that mother of a saint, to whom, incidentally, she gave a pretty rough time, according to Suger and other St Bernards of the sort; for with her everyone got hauled over the coals.”

“Who is that gentleman?” Forcheville asked Mme Verdurin. “He seems first-rate.”

“What! Do you mean to say you don’t know the famous Brichot? Why, he’s celebrated all over Europe.”

“Oh, that’s Bréchot, is it?” exclaimed Forcheville, who had not quite caught the name. “You must tell me all about him,” he went on, fastening a pair of goggle eyes on the