As for the Guermantes of the true flesh and blood, if the Guermantes spirit had not absorbed them as completely as we see occur in, to take an example, those literary circles in which everyone shares a common way of pronouncing his words, of expressing his thoughts, and consequently of thinking, it was certainly not because originality is stronger in purely social groups or presents any obstacle there to imitation. But imitation depends not merely upon the absence of any unconquerable originality but also demands a relative fineness of ear which enables one first of all to discern what one is afterwards to imitate. Whereas there were several Guermantes in whom this musical sense was as entirely lacking as in the Courvoisiers.
To take as an instance what is called, in another sense of the word imitation, “giving imitations” (or among the Guermantes was called “taking off”), Mme. de Guermantes might succeed in this to perfection, the Courvoisiers were as incapable of appreciating her as if they had been a tribe of rabbits instead of men and women, because they had never had the sense to observe the particular defect or accent that the Duchess was endeavouring to copy. When she “gave an imitation” of the Duc de Limoges, the Courvoisiers would protest: “Oh, no, he doesn’t really speak like that; I met him again only yesterday at dinner at Bebeth’s; he talked to me all evening and he didn’t speak like that at all!” whereas the Guermantes of any degree of culture exclaimed: “Gad, what fun Oriane is! The odd part of it is that when she is copying him she looks exactly like him! I feel I’m listening to him. Oriane, do give us a little more Limoges!” Now these Guermantes (and not necessarily the few really outstanding members of the clan who, when the Duchess imitated the Duc de Limoges, would say admiringly: “Oh, you really have got him,” or “You do get him,”) might indeed be devoid of wit according to Mme. de Guermantes (and in this respect she was right); yet, by dint of hearing and repeating her sayings they had come to imitate more or less her way of expressing herself, of criticising people, of what Swann, like the Duke himself, used to call her “phrasing” of things, so that they presented in their conversation something which to the Courvoisiers appeared “fearfully like” Oriane’s wit and was treated by them collectively as the “wit of the Guermantes.” As these Guermantes were to her not merely kinsfolk but admirers, Oriane (who kept the rest of the family rigorously at arm’s-length and now avenged by her disdain the insults that they had heaped upon her in her girlhood) went to call on them now and then, generally in company with the Duke, in the season, when she drove out with him. These visits were historic events. The heart began to beat more rapidly in the bosom of the Princesse d’Epinay, who was “at home” in her big drawing-room on the ground floor, when she perceived afar off, like the first glow of an innocuous fire, or the “reconnaissances” of an unexpected invasion, making her way across the courtyard slowly, in a diagonal course, the Duchess crowned with a ravishing hat and holding atilt a sunshade from which there rained down a summer fragrance. “Why, here comes Oriane,” she would say, like an “On guard!” intended to convey a prudent warning to her visitors, so that they should have time to beat an orderly retreat, to clear the rooms without panic. Half of those present dared not remain, and rose at once to go. “But no, why? Sit down again, I insist on keeping you a little longer,” said the Princess in a careless tone and seemingly at her ease (to show herself the great lady) but in a voice that suddenly rang false. “But you may want to talk to each other.” “Really, you’re in a hurry? Oh, very well, I shall come and see you,” replied the lady of the house to those whom she was just as well pleased to see depart. The Duke and Duchess gave a very civil greeting to people whom they had seen there regularly for years, without for that reason coming to know them any better, while these in return barely said good day to them, thinking this more discreet. Scarcely had they left the room before the Duke began asking good-naturedly who they were, so as to appear to be taking an interest in the intrinsic quality of people whom he himself, owing to the cross-purposes of fate or the wretched state of Oriane’s nerves, never saw in his own house. “Tell me, who was that little woman in the pink hat?” “Why, my dear cousin, you have seen her hundreds of times, she’s the Vicomtesse de Tours, who was a Lamarzelle.” “But, do you know, she’s quite good-looking; she seems clever too; if it weren’t for a little flaw in her upper lip she’d be a regular charmer. If there’s a Vicomte de Tours, he can’t have any too bad a time. Oriane, do you know what those eyebrows and the way her hair grows reminded me of? Your cousin
