There was, at this dinner, besides the usual party, a professor from the Sorbonne, one Brichot, who had met M. and Mme. Verdurin at a watering-place somewhere, and, if his duties at the university and his other works of scholarship had not left him with very little time to spare, would gladly have come to them more often. For he had that curiosity, that superstitious outlook on life, which, combined with a certain amount of scepticism with regard to the object of their studies, earn for men of intelligence, whatever their profession, for doctors who do not believe in medicine, for 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, really, than a preparation for life itself, and imagined that he was seeing put into practice by the ‘little clan’ what hitherto he had known only from books; and also, perhaps, because, having had drilled into him as a boy, and having unconsciously preserved, a feeling of 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 seemed so 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 was on the look-out for an opportunity of attracting his attention, so as to come 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, doubtful, but happy on the whole. While Swann, by the painful and futile effort which he made to smile, testified that he thought the pun absurd, Forcheville had shewn at once 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 are you to say 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 wicked old humbug, 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 two hands, from between which, now and then, escaped a muffled scream.
«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 chiefs of police. Yes, indeed, my dear host, yes, indeed!» he repeated in his ringing voice, which sounded a separate note for each syllable, in reply to a protest by M. Verdurin. «The Chronicle of 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 secularising proletariat than that mother of a Saint, who let him see some pretty fishy saints besides, as Suger says, and other great St. Bernards of the sort; for with her it was a case of taking just what you pleased.»
«Who is that gentleman?» Forcheville asked Mme. Verdurin. «He seems to speak with great authority.»
«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 celebrity. «It’s always interesting to meet well-known people at dinner. But, I say, you ask us to very select parties here. No dull evenings in this house, I’m sure.»
«Well, you know what it is really,» said Mme. Verdurin modestly. «They feel safe here. They can talk about whatever they like, and the conversation goes off like fireworks. Now Brichot, this evening, is nothing. I’ve seen him, don’t you know, when he’s been with me, simply dazzling; you’d want to go on your knees to him. Well, with anyone else he’s not the same man, he’s not in the least witty, you have to drag the words out of him, he’s even boring.»
«That’s strange,» remarked Forcheville with fitting astonishment.
A sort of wit like Brichot’s would have been regarded as out-and-out stupidity by the people among whom Swann had spent his early life, for all that it is quite compatible with real intelligence. And the intelligence of the Professor’s vigorous and well-nourished brain might easily have been envied by many of the people in society who seemed witty enough to Swann. But these last had so thoroughly inculcated into him their likes and dislikes, at least in everything that pertained to their ordinary social existence, including that annex to social existence which belongs, strictly speaking, to the domain of intelligence, namely, conversation, that Swann could not see anything in Brichot’s pleasantries; to him they were merely pedantic, vulgar, and disgustingly coarse. He was shocked, too, being accustomed to good manners, by the rude, almost barrack-room tone which this student-in-arms adopted, no matter to whom he was speaking. Finally, perhaps, he had lost all patience that evening as he watched Mme. Verdurin welcoming, with such unnecessary warmth, this Forcheville fellow, whom it had been Odette’s unaccountable idea to bring to the house. Feeling a little awkward, with Swann there also, she had asked him on her arrival: «What do you think of my guest?»
And he, suddenly realising for the first time that Forcheville, whom he had known for years, could actually attract a woman, and was quite a good specimen of a man, had retorted: «Beastly!» He had, certainly, no idea of being jealous of Odette, but did not feel quite so happy as usual, and when Brichot, having begun to tell them the story of Blanche of Castile’s mother, who, according to him, «had been with Henry Plantagenet for years before they were married,» tried to prompt Swann to beg him to continue the story, by interjecting «Isn’t that so, M. Swann?» in the martial accents which one uses in order to get down to the level of an unintelligent rustic or to put the ‘fear of God’ into a trooper, Swann cut his story short, to the intense fury of their hostess, by begging to be excused for taking so little interest in Blanche of Castile, as he had something that he wished to ask the painter. He, it appeared, had been that afternoon to an exhibition of the work of another artist, also a friend of Mme. Verdurin, who had recently died, and Swann wished to find out from him (for he valued his discrimination) whether there had really been anything more in this later work than the virtuosity which had struck people so forcibly in his earlier exhibitions.
«From that point of view it was extraordinary, but it did not seem to me to be a form of art which you could call ‘elevated,'» said Swann with a smile.
«Elevated… to the height
