the post.” “In spite of the Case!” “The question was never raised. However I must tell you that since all this business began I never set foot in the place.”
M. de Guermantes returned, and was presently joined by his wife, all ready now for the evening, tall and proud in a gown of red satin the skirt of which was bordered with spangles. She had in her hair a long ostrich feather dyed purple, and over her shoulders a tulle scarf of the same red as her dress. “How nice it is to have one’s hat lined with leather,” said the Duchess, whom nothing escaped. “However, with you, Charles, everything is always charming, whether it’s what you wear or what you say what you read or what you do.” Swann meanwhile, without apparently listening, was considering the Duchess as he would have studied the canvas of a master, and then sought her gaze, making with his lips the grimace which implies: ‘The devil!’ Mme. de Guermantes rippled with laughter. “So my clothes please you? I’m delighted. But I must say that they don’t please me much,” she went on with a sulking air. “Good Lord, what a bore it is to have to dress up and go out when one would ever so much rather stay at home!” “What magnificent rubies!” “Ah! my dear Charles, at least one can see that you know what you’re talking about, you’re not like that brute Monserfeuil who asked me if they were real. I must say that I’ve never seen anything quite like them. They were a present from the Grand Duchess. They’re a little too large for my liking, a little too like claret glasses filled to the brim, but I’ve put them on because we shall be seeing the Grand Duchess this evening at Marie-Gilbert’s,” added Mme. de Guermantes, never suspecting that this assertion destroyed the force of those previously made by the Duke. “What’s on at the Princess’s?” inquired Swann. “Practically nothing,” the Duke hastened to reply, the question having made him think that Swann was not invited. “What’s that, Basin? When all the highways and hedgerows have been scoured? It will be a deathly crush. What will be pretty, though,” she went on, looking wistfully at Swann, “if the storm I can feel in the air now doesn’t break, will be those marvellous gardens. You know them, of course. I was there a month ago, at the time when the lilacs were in flower, you can’t have any idea how lovely they were. And then the fountain, really, it’s Versailles in Paris.” “What sort of person is the Princess?” I asked. “Why, you know quite well, you’ve seen her here, she’s as beautiful as the day, also rather an idiot. Very nice, in spite of all her Germanic high-and-mightiness, full of good nature and stupid mistakes.” Swann was too subtle not to perceive that the Duchess, in this speech, was trying to shew the ‘Guermantes wit,’ and at no great cost to herself, for she was only serving up in a less perfect form an old saying of her own. Nevertheless, to prove to the Duchess that he appreciated her intention to be, and as though she had really succeeded in being, funny, he smiled with a slightly forced air, causing me by this particular form of insincerity the same feeling of awkwardness that used to disturb me long ago when I heard my parents discussing with M. Vinteuil the corruption of certain sections of society (when they knew very well that a corruption far greater sat enthroned at Montjouvain), Legrandin colouring his 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 loony. 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 at 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 Due 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 probably 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 secondhand. 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 as 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