In Search of Lost Time

food.” “Or less,” put in the Duchess. “It is quite wholesome and quite enough for what you would call a vulgar yokel like myself,” went on the Duke, “one keeps one’s appetite.” “Oh, if it’s to be taken as a cure, it’s certainly more hygienic than sumptuous. Not that it’s as good as all that,” added Mme. de Guermantes, who was not at all pleased that the title of “best table in Paris” should be awarded to any but her own. “With my cousin it’s just the same as with those costive authors who hatch out every fifteen years a one-act play or a sonnet. The sort of thing people call a little masterpiece, trifles that are perfect gems, in fact the one thing I loathe most in the world. The cooking at Zénaïde’s is not bad, but you would think it more ordinary if she was less parsimonious. There are some things her cook does quite well, and others that he spoils. I have had some thoroughly bad dinners there, as in most houses, only they’ve done me less harm there because the stomach is, after all, more sensitive to quantity than to quality.” “Well, to get on with the story,” the Duke concluded, “Zénaïde insisted that Oriane should go to luncheon there, and as my wife is not very fond of going out anywhere she resisted, wanted to be sure that under the pretence of a quiet meal she was not being trapped into some great banquet, and tried in vain to find out who else were to be of the party. ‘You must come,’ Zénaïde insisted, boasting of all the good things there would be to eat. ‘You are going to have a purée of chestnuts, I need say no more than that, and there will be seven little bouchées à la reine.’ ‘Seven little bouchées!’ cried Oriane, ‘that means that we shall be at least eight!’ ” There was silence for a few seconds, and then the Princess having seen the point let her laughter explode like a peal of thunder. “Ah! ‘Then we shall be eight,’⁠—it’s exquisite. How very well phrased!” she said, having by a supreme effort recaptured the expression she had heard used by Mme. d’Epinay, which this time was more appropriate. “Oriane, that was very charming of the Princess, she said your remark was well phrased.” “But, my dear, you’re telling me nothing new. I know how clever the Princess is,” replied Mme. de Guermantes, who readily assimilated a remark when it was uttered at once by a Royal Personage and in praise of her own wit. “I am very proud that Ma’am should appreciate my humble phrasings. I don’t remember, though, that I ever did say such a thing, and if I did it must have been to flatter my cousin, for if she had ordered seven ‘mouthfuls,’ the mouths, if I may so express myself, would have been a round dozen if not more.”

“She used to have all M. de Bornier’s manuscripts,” went on the Princess, still speaking of Mme. d’Heudicourt, and anxious to make the most of the excellent reasons she might have for associating with that lady. “She must have dreamed it, I don’t believe she ever even knew him,” said the Duchess. “What is really interesting about him is that he kept up a correspondence with people of different nationalities at the same time,” put in the Vicomtesse d’Arpajon who, allied to the principal ducal and even reigning families of Europe, was always glad that people should be reminded of the fact. “Surely, Oriane,” said M. de Guermantes, with ulterior purpose, “you can’t have forgotten that dinner-party where you had M. de Bornier sitting next to you!” “But, Basin,” the Duchess interrupted him, “if you mean to inform me that I knew M. de Bornier, why of course I did, he even called upon me several times, but I could never bring myself to invite him to the house because I should always have been obliged to have it disinfected afterwards with formol. As for the dinner you mean, I remember it only too well, but it was certainly not at Zénaïde’s, who never set eyes on Bornier in her life, and would probably think if you spoke to her of the Fille de Roland that you meant a Bonaparte Princess who was said at one time to be engaged to the son of the King of Greece; no, it was at the Austrian Embassy. Dear Hoyos imagined he was giving me a great treat by planting on the chair next to mine that pestiferous academician. I quite thought I had a squadron of mounted police sitting beside me. I was obliged to stop my nose as best I could, all through dinner; until the gruyère came round I didn’t dare to breathe.” M. de Guermantes, whose secret object was attained, made a furtive examination of his guests’ faces to judge the effect of the Duchess’s pleasantry. “You were speaking of correspondence; I must say, I thought Gambetta’s admirable,” she went on, to show that she was not afraid to be found taking an interest in a proletarian and a radical. M. de Bréauté, who fully appreciated the brilliance of this feat of daring, gazed round him with an eye at once flashing and affectionate, after which he wiped his monocle.

“Gad, it’s infernally dull that Fille de Roland,” said M. de Guermantes, with the satisfaction which he derived from the sense of his own superiority to a work which had bored him so, perhaps also from the suave mari magno feeling one has in the middle of a good dinner, when one recalls so terrible an evening in the past. “Still, there were some quite good lines in it, and a patriotic sentiment.”

I let it be understood that I had no admiration for M. de Bornier. “Indeed! You have some fault to find with him?” the Duke asked with a note of curiosity, for he always imagined when anyone spoke