ingly 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and the use of formal expressions were out of date, whenever he heard a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 ho