ing, at least once, before
the end of dinner. He surrendered so quickly, looked so wretched at the
sight of his castle in ruins, and replied in so craven a tone to Swann,
appealing to him not to persist in a refutation which was already
superfluous, "All right; all right; anyhow, even if I have made a
mistake that's not a crime, I hope," that Swann longed to be able
to console him by insisting that the story was indubitably true and
exquisitely funny. The Doctor, who had been listening, had an idea that
it was the right moment to interject "_Se non e vero_," but he was not
quite certain of the words, and was afraid of being caught out.

After dinner, Forcheville went up to the Doctor. "She can't have been
at all bad looking, Mme. Verdurin; anyhow, she's a woman you can really
talk to; that's all I want. Of course she's getting a bit broad in the
beam. But Mme. de Crecy! There's a little woman who knows what's what,
all right. Upon my word and soul, you can see at a glance she's got
the American eye, that girl has. We are speaking of Mme. de Crecy," he
explained, as M. Verdurin joined them, his pipe in his mouth. "I should
say that, as a specimen of the female form--"

"I'd rather have it in my bed than a clap of thunder!" the words came
tumbling from Cottard, who had for some time been waiting in vain until
Forcheville should pause for breath, so that he might get in his hoary
old joke, a chance for which might not, he feared, come again, if the
conversation should take a different turn; and he produced it now with
that excessive spontaneity and confidence which may often be noticed
attempting to cover up the coldness, and the slight flutter of emotion,
inseparable from a prepared recitation. Forcheville knew and saw the
joke, and was thoroughly amused. As for M. Verdurin, he was unsparing
of his merriment, having recently discovered a way of expressing it by
a symbol, different from his wife's, but equally simple and obvious.
Scarcely had he begun the movement of head and shoulders of a man
who was 'shaking with laughter' than he would begin also to cough, as
though, in laughing too violently, he had swallowed a mouthful of smoke
from his pipe. And by keeping the pipe firmly in his mouth he could
prolong indefinitely the dumb-show of suffocation and hilarity. So he
and Mme. Verdurin (who, at the other side of the room, where the painter
was telling her a story, was shutting her eyes preparatory to flinging
her face in