She had made him sit down beside her in one
of the many mysterious little retreats which had been contrived in the
various recesses of the room, sheltered by enormous palmtrees growing
out of pots of Chinese porcelain, or by screens upon which were fastened
photographs and fans and bows of ribbon. She had said at once, "You're
not comfortable there; wait a minute, I'll arrange things for you," and
with a titter of laughter, the complacency of which implied that
some little invention of her own was being brought into play, she
had installed behind his head and beneath his feet great cushions of
Japanese silk, which she pummelled and buffeted as though determined to
lavish on him all her riches, and regardless of their value. But when
her footman began to come into the room, bringing, one after another,
the innumerable lamps which (contained, mostly, in porcelain vases)
burned singly or in pairs upon the different pieces of furniture as upon
so many altars, rekindling in the twilight, already almost nocturnal, of
this winter afternoon, the glow of a sunset more lasting, more roseate,
more human--filling, perhaps, with romantic wonder the thoughts of
some solitary lover, wandering in the street below and brought to a
standstill before the mystery of the human presence which those lighted
windows at once revealed and screened from sight--she had kept an eye
sharply fixed on the servant, to see whether he set each of the lamps
down in the place appointed it. She felt that, if he were to put
even one of them where it ought not to be, the general effect of her
drawing-room would be destroyed, and that her portrait, which rested
upon a sloping easel draped with plush, would not catch the light. And
so, with feverish impatience, she followed the man's clumsy movements,
scolding him severely when he passed too close to a pair of beaupots,
which she made a point of always tidying herself, in case the plants
should be knocked over--and went across to them now to make sure that he
had not broken off any of the flowers. She found something 'quaint' in
the shape of each of her Chinese ornaments, and also in her orchids, the
cattleyas especially (these being, with chrysanthemums, her favourite
flowers), because they had the supreme merit of not looking in the least
like other flowers, but of being made, apparently, out of scraps of silk
or satin. "It looks just as though it had been cut out of the lining
of my cloak," she said to Swann,