more than that the recent publication of Vinteuil's
sonata had caused a great stir among the most advanced school of
musicians, but that it was still unknown to the general public.

"I know some one, quite well, called Vinteuil," said Swann, thinking of
the old music-master at Combray who had taught my grandmother's sisters.

"Perhaps that's the man!" cried Mme. Verdurin.

"Oh, no!" Swann burst out laughing. "If you had ever seen him for a
moment you wouldn't put the question."

"Then to put the question is to solve the problem?" the Doctor
suggested.

"But it may well be some relative," Swann went on. "That would be bad
enough; but, after all, there is no reason why a genius shouldn't have
a cousin who is a silly old fool. And if that should be so, I swear
there's no known or unknown form of torture I wouldn't undergo to
get the old fool to introduce me to the man who composed the sonata;
starting with the torture of the old fool's company, which would be
ghastly."

The painter understood that Vinteuil was seriously ill at the moment,
and that Dr. Potain despaired of his life.

"What!" cried Mme. Verdurin, "Do people still call in Potain?"

"Ah! Mme. Verdurin," Cottard simpered, "you forget that you are speaking
of one of my colleagues--I should say, one of my masters."

The painter had heard, somewhere, that Vinteuil was threatened with the
loss of his reason. And he insisted that signs of this could be detected
in certain passages in the sonata. This remark did not strike Swann as
ridiculous; rather, it puzzled him. For, since a purely musical work
contains none of those logical sequences, the interruption or confusion
of which, in spoken or written language, is a proof of insanity, so
insanity diagnosed in a sonata seemed to him as mysterious a thing as
the insanity of a dog or a horse, although instances may be observed of
these.

"Don't speak to me about 'your masters'; you know ten times as much as
he does!" Mme. Verdurin answered Dr. Cottard, in the tone of a woman who
has the courage of her convictions, and is quite ready to stand up to
anyone who disagrees with her. "Anyhow, you don't kill your patients!"

"But, Madame, he is in the Academy." The Doctor smiled with bitter
irony. "If a sick person prefers to die at the hands of one of the
Princes of Science... It is far more smart to be able to say, 'Yes, I
have Potain.'"

"Oh, indeed! More smart, is it?" said Mme. Verdurin. "So there are
fashion