proceed to hum the rest of the air in falsetto, he had to be
satisfied with murmuring, smiling the while, as if, after all, there had
been something irresistibly amusing in the sheer beauty of the painting:
"It smells all right; it makes your head go round; it catches your
breath; you feel ticklish all over--and not the faintest clue to how
it's done. The man's a sorcerer; the thing's a conjuring-trick, it's
a miracle," bursting outright into laughter, "it's dishonest!" Then
stopping, solemnly raising his head, pitching his voice on a double-bass
note which he struggled to bring into harmony, he concluded, "And it's
so loyal!"

Except at the moment when he had called it "bigger than the 'Night
Watch,'" a blasphemy which had called forth an instant protest from Mme.
Verdurin, who regarded the 'Night Watch' as the supreme masterpiece of
the universe (conjointly with the 'Ninth' and the 'Samothrace'), and at
the word "excrement," which had made Forcheville throw a sweeping glance
round the table to see whether it was 'all right,' before he allowed his
lips to curve in a prudish and conciliatory smile, all the party
(save Swann) had kept their fascinated and adoring eyes fixed upon the
painter.

"I do so love him when he goes up in the air like that!" cried
Mme. Verdurin, the moment that he had finished, enraptured that the
table-talk should have proved so entertaining on the very night that
Forcheville was dining with them for the first time. "Hallo, you!" she
turned to her husband, "what's the matter with you, sitting there gaping
like a great animal? You know, though, don't you," she apologised
for him to the painter, "that he can talk quite well when he chooses;
anybody would think it was the first time he had ever listened to you.
If you had only seen him while you were speaking; he was just drinking
it all in. And to-morrow he will tell us everything you said, without
missing a word."

"No, really, I'm not joking!" protested the painter, enchanted by the
success of his speech. "You all look as if you thought I was pulling
your legs, that it was just a trick. I'll take you to see the show, and
then you can say whether I've been exaggerating; I'll bet you anything
you like, you'll come away more 'up in the air' than I am!"

"But we don't suppose for a moment that you're exaggerating; we only
want you to go on with your dinner, and my husband too. Give M. Biche
some more sole, can't you see his has got cold? We're no