“Oh, I say,” cried M. d’Argencourt.
“With the utmost politeness I took the liberty of hinting to her that this might seem a little unusual. And she said—I give you her actual words—‘One ought always to repeat a thing as though one were just composing it oneself.’ When you think of it, that really is monumental.”
“But I understood she wasn’t at all bad at reciting poetry,” said one of the two young men.
“She hasn’t the ghost of a notion what poetry is,” replied Mme. de Guermantes. “However, I didn’t need to listen to her to tell that. It was quite enough to see her come in with her lilies. I knew at once that she couldn’t have any talent when I saw those lilies!”
Everybody laughed.
“I hope, my dear aunt, you aren’t angry with me, over my little joke the other day about the Queen of Sweden. I’ve come to ask your forgiveness.”
“Oh, no, I’m not at all angry, I even give you leave to eat at my table, if you’re hungry.—Come along, M. Valmère, you’re the daughter of the house,” Mme. de Villeparisis went on to the librarian, repeating a time-honoured pleasantry.
M. de Guermantes sat upright in the armchair in which he had come to anchor, his hat on the carpet by his side, and examined with a satisfied smile the plate of little cakes that was being held out to him.
“Why, certainly, now that I am beginning to feel at home in this distinguished company, I will take a sponge-cake; they look excellent.”
“This gentleman makes you an admirable daughter,” commented M. d’Argencourt, whom the spirit of imitation prompted to keep Mme. de Villeparisis’s little joke in circulation.
The librarian handed the plate of cakes to the historian of the Fronde.
“You perform your functions admirably,” said the latter, startled into speech, and hoping also to win the sympathy of the crowd. At the same time he cast a covert glance of connivance at those who had anticipated him.
“Tell me, my dear aunt,” M. de Guermantes inquired of Mme. de Villeparisis, “who was that rather good-looking man who was going out just now as I came in? I must know him, because he gave me a sweeping bow, but I couldn’t place him at all; you know I never can remember names, it’s such a nuisance,” he added, in a tone of satisfaction.
“M. Legrandin.”
“Oh, but Oriane has a cousin whose mother, if I’m not mistaken, was a Grandin. Yes, I remember quite well, she was a Grandin de l’Epervier.”
“No,” replied Mme. de Villeparisis, “no relation at all. These are plain Grandins. Grandins of nothing at all. But they’d be only too glad to be Grandins of anything you chose to name. This one has a sister called Mme. de Cambremer.”
“Why, Basin, you know quite well who’ my aunt means,” cried the Duchess indignantly. “He’s the brother of that great graminivorous creature you had the weird idea of sending to call on me the other day. She stayed a solid hour; I thought I should go mad. But I began by thinking it was she who was mad when I saw a person I didn’t know come browsing into the room looking exactly like a cow.”
“Listen, Oriane; she asked me what afternoon you were at home; I couldn’t very well be rude to her; and besides, you do exaggerate so, she’s not in the least like a cow,” he added in a plaintive tone, though not without a quick smiling glance at the audience.
He knew that his wife’s lively wit needed the stimulus of contradiction, the contradiction of common sense which protests that one cannot (for instance) mistake a woman seriously for a cow; by this process Mme. de Guermantes, enlarging upon her original idea, had been inspired to produce many of her most brilliant sayings. And the Duke in his innocent fashion helped her, without seeming to do so, to bring off her effects like, in a railway carriage, the unacknowledged partner of the three-card player.
“I admit she doesn’t look like a cow, she looks like a dozen,” exclaimed Mme. de Guermantes. “I assure you, I didn’t know what to do when I saw a herd of cattle come marching into my drawing-room in a hat and heard them ask me how I was. I had half a mind to say: ‘Please, herd of cattle, you must be making a mistake, you can’t possibly know me, because you’re a herd of cattle,’ but after racking my brains over her I came to the conclusion that your Cambremer woman must be the Infanta Dorothea, who had said she was coming to see me one day, and is rather bovine also, so that I was just on the point of saying: ‘Your Royal Highness’ and using the third person to a herd of cattle. The cut of her dewlap reminded me rather, too, of the Queen of Sweden. But this massed attack had been prepared for by long range artillery fire, according to all the rules of war. For I don’t know how long before, I was bombarded with her cards; I used to find them lying about all over the house, on all the tables and chairs, like prospectuses. I couldn’t think what they were supposed to be advertising. You saw nothing in the house but ‘Marquis et Marquise de Cambremer’ with some address or other which I’ve forgotten; you may be quite sure nothing will ever take me there.”
“But it’s a great distinction to look like a Queen,” said the historian of the Fronde.
“Gad, sir, Kings and Queens, in these days, don’t amount to much,” said M. de Guermantes, partly because he liked to be thought broad-minded and modern, and also so as to not to seem to attach any importance to his own royal friendships, which he valued highly.
Bloch and M. de Norpois had returned from the other room and came towards us.
“Well, sir,” asked Mme. de
