Swann's Way
"I never dared to mention it," M. Verdurin had answered, "but I've
noticed the same thing myself." And on the following New Year's Day,
instead of sending Dr. Cottard a ruby that cost three thousand francs,
and pretending that it was a mere trifle, M. Verdurin bought an
artificial stone for three hundred, and let it be understood that it was
something almost impossible to match.
When Mme. Verdurin had announced that they were to see M. Swann that
evening; "Swann!" the Doctor had exclaimed in a tone rendered brutal
by his astonishment, for the smallest piece of news would always take
utterly unawares this man who imagined himself to be perpetually in
readiness for anything. And seeing that no one answered him, "Swann! Who
on earth is Swann?" he shouted, in a frenzy of anxiety which subsided
as soon as Mme. Verdurin had explained, "Why, Odette's friend, whom she
told us about."
"Ah, good, good; that's all right, then," answered the Doctor, at once
mollified. As for the painter, he was overjoyed at the prospect of
Swann's appearing at the Verdurins', because he supposed him to be in
love with Odette, and was always ready to assist at lovers' meetings.
"Nothing amuses me more than match-making," he confided to Cottard; "I
have been tremendously successful, even with women!"
In telling the Verdurins that Swann was extremely 'smart,' Odette had
alarmed them with the prospect of another 'bore.' When he arrived,
however, he made an excellent impression, an indirect cause of which,
though they did not know it, was his familiarity with the best society.
He had, indeed, one of those advantages which men who have lived and
moved in the world enjoy over others, even men of intelligence and
refinement, who have never gone into society, namely that they no longer
see it transfigured by the longing or repulsion with which it fills
the imagination, but regard it as quite unimportant. Their good nature,
freed from all taint of snobbishness and from the fear of seeming
too friendly, grown independent, in fact, has the ease, the grace of
movement of a trained gymnast each of whose supple limbs will carry out
precisely the movement that is required without any clumsy participation
by the rest of his body. The simple and elementary gestures used by a
man of the world when he courteously holds out his hand to the unknown
youth who is being introduced to him, and when he bows discreetly before
the Ambassador to whom he is being introduced, had gradually pervaded,
without his being conscious of it, the whole of Swann's social
deportment, so that in the company of people of a lower grade than his
own, such as the Verdurins and their friends, he instinctively shewed an
assiduity, and made overtures with which, by their account, any of their
'bores' would have dispensed. He chilled, though for a moment only,
on meeting Dr. Cottard; for seeing him close one eye with an ambiguous
smile, before they had yet spoken to one another (a grimace which
Cottard styled "letting 'em all come"), Swann supposed that the Doctor
recognised him from having met him already somewhere, probably in some
house of 'ill-fame,' though these he himself very rarely visited,
never having made a habit of indulging in the mercenary sort of love.
Regarding such an allusion as in bad taste, especially before Odette,
whose opinion of himself it might easily alter for the worse, Swann
assumed his most icy manner. But when he learned that the lady next to
the Doctor was Mme. Cottard, he decided that so young a husband would
not deliberately, in his wife's hearing, have made any allusion to
amusements of that order, and so ceased to interpret the Doctor's
expression in the sense which he had at first suspected. The painter at
once invited Swann to visit his studio with Odette, and Swann found him
very pleasant. "Perhaps you will be more highly favoured than I have
been," Mme. Verdurin broke in, with mock resentment of the favour,
"perhaps you will be allowed to see Cottard's portrait" (for which she
had given the painter a commission). "Take care, Master Biche," she
reminded the painter, whom it was a time-honoured pleasantry to address
as 'Master,' "to catch that nice look in his eyes, that witty little
twinkle. You know, what I want to have most of all is his smile; that's
what I've asked you to paint--the portrait of his smile." And since the
phrase struck her as noteworthy, she repeated it very loud, so as to
make sure that as many as possible of her guests should hear it, and
even made use of some indefinite pretext to draw the circle closer
before she uttered it again. Swann begged to be introduced to everyone,
even to an old friend of the Verdurins, called Saniette, whose shyness,
simplicity and good-nature had deprived him of all the consideration due
to his skill in palaeography, his large fortune, and the distinguished
family to which he belonged. When he spoke, his words came with
a confusion which was delightful to hear because one felt that it
indicated not so much a defect in his speech as a quality of his soul,
as it were a survival from the age of innocence which he had never
wholly outgrown. All the consonants which he did not manage to pronounce
seemed like harsh utterances of which his gentle lips were incapable. By
asking to be made known to M. Saniette, Swann made M. Verdurin reverse
the usual form of introduction (saying, in fact, with emphasis on the
distinction: "M. Swann, pray let me present to you our friend Saniette")
but he aroused in Saniette himself a warmth of gratitude, which,
however, the Verdurins never disclosed to Swann, since Saniette rather
annoyed them, and they did not feel bound 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 be introduced to 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, those sounds and syllables of which she felt positive.
Swann supposed himself entitled to poke a little mild fun at her in
conversation with M. Verdurin, who, however, was not at all amused.
"She is such an excellent woman!" he rejoined. "I grant you that she
is not exactly brilliant; but I assure you that she can talk most
charmingly when you are alone with her."
"I am sure she can," Swann hastened to conciliate him. "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, after all, that is
something of a compliment."
"Wait a moment," said M. Verdurin, "now, this will surprise you; she
writes quite delightfully. You have never heard her nephew play? It is
admirable; eh, Doctor? Would you like me to ask him to play something,
M. Swann?"
"I should count myself most fortunate..." Swann was beginning, a trifle
pompously, when the Doctor broke in derisively. Having once heard it
said, and never having forgotten that in general conversation emphasis
and the use of formal expressions were out of date, whenever he heard a
solemn word used seriously, as the word 'fortunate' had been used just
now by Swann, he at once assumed that the speaker was being deliberately
pedantic. And if, moreover, the same word happened to occur, also, in
what he called an old 'tag' or 'saw,' however common it might still be
in current usage, the Doctor jumped to the conclusion that the whole
thing was a joke, and interrupted with the remaining words of the
quotation, which he seemed to charge the speaker with having intended
to introduce at that point, although in reality it had never entered his
mind.
"Most fortunate for France!" he recited wickedly, shooting up both arms
with great vigour. 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 peevishly, like a spoiled child.
Mme. Verdurin was sitting upon a high Swedish chair of waxed pine-wood,
which a violinist from that country had given her, and which she kept in
her drawing-room, although in appearance it suggested a school 'form,'
and 'swore,' as the saying is, at 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 was never successful, 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 her spirited part in the
conversation of the 'faithful,' and would revel in all their fun; but,
since the accident to her jaw, she had abandoned the effort involved in
real hilarity, and had substituted a kind of symbolical dumb-show which
signified, without endangering or even fatiguing her in any way, that
she was 'laughing until she cried.' At the least witticism aimed by any
of the circle against a 'bore,' or against a former member of the circle
who was now relegated to the limbo of 'bores'--and to the utter despair
of M. Verdurin, who had always made out that he was just as easily
amused as his wife, but who, since his laughter was the 'real thing,'
was out of breath in a moment, and so was overtaken and vanquished
by her device of a feigned but continuous hilarity--she would utter a
shrill cry, shut tight her little bird-like eyes, which were beginning
to be clouded over by a cataract, and quickly, as though she had only
just time to avoid some indecent sight or to parry a mortal blow,
burying her face in her hands, which completely engulfed it, and
prevented her from seeing anything at all, she would appear to be
struggling to suppress, to eradicate a laugh which, were she to give
way to it, must inevitably leave her inanimate. So, stupefied with
the gaiety of the 'faithful,' drunken with comradeship, scandal and
asseveration, Mme. Verdurin, perched on her high seat like a cage-bird
whose biscuit has been steeped in mulled wine, would sit aloft and sob
with fellow-feeling.
Meanwhile M. Verdurin, after first asking Swann's permission to light
his pipe ("No ceremony here, you understand; we're all pals!"), went and
begged the young musician to sit down at the piano.
"Leave him alone; don't bother him; he hasn't come here to be
tormented," cried Mme. Verdurin. "I won't have him tormented."
"But why on earth should it bother him?" rejoined M. Verdurin. "I'm sure
M. Swann has never heard the sonata in F sharp which we discovered; he
is going to play us the pianoforte arrangement."
"No, no, no, not my sonata!" she screamed, "I don't want to be made to
cry until I get a cold in the head, and neuralgia all down my face, like