utterances for the benefit of fools, choosing delicate epithets which he knew perfectly well would not be understood by a rich or smart but illiterate public. “Come now, Oriane, what on earth are you saying?” broke in M. de Guermantes. “Marie a fool? Why, she has read everything, she’s as musical as a fiddle.” “But, my poor little Basin, you’re as innocent as a new-born babe. As if one could not be all that, and rather an idiot as well. Idiot is too strong a word; no, she’s in the clouds, she’s Hesse-Darmstadt, Holy Roman Empire, and wa-wa-wa. Her pronunciation alone makes me tired. But I quite admit that she’s a charming looney. Simply the idea of stepping down from her German throne to go and marry, in the most middle-class way, a private citizen. It is true that she chose him! Yes, it’s quite true,” she went on, turning to me, “you don’t know Gilbert. Let me give you an idea of him, he took to his bed once because I had left a card on Mme. Carnot…. But, my little Charles,” said the Duchess, changing the conversation when she saw that the story of the card left on the Carnots appeared to irritate M. de Guermantes, “you know, you’ve never sent me that photograph of our Knights of Rhodes, whom I’ve learned to love through you, and I am so anxious to make their acquaintance.” The Duke meanwhile had not taken his eyes from his wife’s face. “Oriane, you might 380at least tell the story properly and not cut out half. I ought to explain,” he corrected, addressing Swann, “that the British Ambassadress at that time, who was a very worthy woman, but lived rather in the moon and was in the habit of making up these odd combinations, conceived the distinctly quaint idea of inviting us with the President and his wife. We were—Oriane herself was rather surprised, especially as the Ambassadress knew quite enough of the people we knew not to invite us, of all things, to so ill-assorted a gathering. There was a Minister there who is a swindler, however I pass over all that, we had not been warned in time, were caught in the trap, and, I’m bound to admit, all these people behaved most civilly to us. Only, once was enough. Mme. de Guermantes, who does not often do me the honour of consulting me, felt it incumbent upon her to leave a card in the course of the following week at the Elysée. Gilbert may perhaps have gone rather far in regarding it as a stain upon our name. But it must not be forgotten that, politics apart, M. Carnot, who for that matter filled his post quite adequately, was the grandson of a member of the Revolutionary Tribunal which caused the death of eleven of our people in a single day.” “In that case, Basin, why did you go every week to dine at Chantilly? The Duc d’Aumale was just as much the grandson of a member of the Revolutionary Tribunal, with this difference, that Carnot was a brave man and Philippe Egalité a wretched scoundrel.” “Excuse my interrupting you to explain that I did send the photograph,” said Swann. “I can’t understand how it hasn’t reached you.” “It doesn’t altogether surprise me,” said the Duchess, “my servants tell me only what they think fit. They 381probably do not approve of the Order of Saint John.” And she rang the bell. “You know, Oriane, that when I used to go to Chantilly it was without enthusiasm.” “Without enthusiasm, but with a nightshirt in a bag, in case the Prince asked you to stay, which for that matter he very rarely did, being a perfect cad like all the Orléans lot. Do you know who else are to be dining at Mme. de Saint-Euverte’s?” Mme. de Guermantes asked her husband. “Besides the people you know already, she’s asked at the last moment King Theodosius’s brother.” At these tidings the Duchess’s features breathed contentment and her speech boredom. “Oh, good heavens, more princes!” “But that one is well-mannered and intelligent,” Swann suggested. “Not altogether, though,” replied the Duchess, apparently seeking for words that would give more novelty to the thought expressed. “Have you ever noticed with princes that the best-mannered among them are not really well-mannered? They must always have an opinion about everything. Then, as they have none of their own, they spend the first half of their lives asking us ours and the other half serving it up to us second-hand. They positively must be able to say that one piece has been well played and the next not so well. When there is no difference. Listen, this little Theodosius junior (I forget his name) asked me what one called an orchestral motif. I replied,” said the Duchess, her eyes sparkling while a laugh broke from her beautiful red lips: “‘One calls it an orchestral motif.’ I don’t think he was any too well pleased, really. Oh, my dear Charles,” she went on, “what a bore it can be, dining out. There are evenings when one would sooner die! It is true that dying may be perhaps just 382as great a bore, because we don’t know what it’s like.” A servant appeared. It was the young lover who used to have trouble with the porter, until the Duchess, in her kindness of heart, brought about an apparent peace between them. “Am I to go up this evening to inquire for M. le Marquis d’Osmond?” he asked. “Most certainly not, nothing before to-morrow morning. In fact I don’t want you to remain in the house to-night. The only thing that will happen will be that his footman, who knows you, will come to you with the latest report and send you out after us. Get off, go anywhere you like, have a woman, sleep out, but I don’t want to see you here before to-morrow morning.” An immense joy overflowed from the footman’s face. He would at last be able to spend long hours with his lady-love, whom he had practically ceased to see ever since, after a final scene with the porter, the Duchess had considerately explained to him that it would be better, to avoid further conflicts, if he did not go out at all. He floated, at the thought of having an evening free at last, in a happiness which the Duchess saw and guessed its reason. She felt, so to speak, a tightening of the heart and an itching in all her limbs at the sight of this happiness which an amorous couple were snatching behind her back, concealing themselves from her, which left her irritated and jealous. “No, Basin, let him stay here; I say, he’s not to stir out of the house.” “But, Oriane, that’s absurd, the house is crammed with servants, and you have the costumier’s people coming as well at twelve to dress us for this show. There’s absolutely nothing for him to do, and he’s the only one who’s a friend of Mama’s footman; I would a thousand times rather get him right 383away from the house.” “Listen, Basin, let me do what I want, I shall have a message for him to take in the evening, as it happens, I can’t tell yet at what time. In any case you’re not to go out of the house for a single instant, do you hear?” she said to the despairing footman. If there were continual quarrels, and if servants did not stay long with the Duchess, the person to whose charge this guerrilla warfare was to be laid was indeed irremovable, but it was not the porter; no doubt for the rougher tasks, for the martyrdoms that it was more tiring to inflict, for the quarrels which ended in blows, the Duchess entrusted the heavier instruments to him; but even then he played his part without the least suspicion that he had been cast for it. Like the household servants, he admired the Duchess for her kindness of heart; and footmen of little discernment who came back, after leaving her service, to visit Françoise used to say that the Duke’s house would have been the finest “place” in Paris if it had not been for the porter’s lodge. The Duchess “played” the lodge on them, just as at different times clericalism, freemasonry, the Jewish peril have been played on the public. Another footman came into the room. “Why have not they brought up the package that M. Swann sent here? And, by the way (you’ve heard, Charles, that Mama is seriously ill?), Jules went up to inquire for news of M. le Marquis d’Osmond: has he come back yet?” “He’s just come this instant, M. le Duc. They’re waiting from one moment to the next for M. le Marquis to pass away.” “Ah! He’s alive!” exclaimed the Duke with a sigh of relief. “That’s all right, that’s all right: sold again, Satan! While there’s life there’s hope,” the Duke announced to us with a joyful 384air. “They’ve been talking about him as though he were dead and buried. In a week from now he’ll be fitter than I am.” “It’s the Doctors who said that he wouldn’t last out the evening. One of them wanted to call again during the night. The head one said it was no use. M. le Marquis would be dead by then; they’ve only kept him alive by injecting him with camphorated oil.” “Hold your tongue, you damned fool,” cried the Duke in a paroxysm of rage.