gradation which her own family, the truest and bluest of Legitimists,
would never have forgiven her, she had come gradually to believe that
this actually was the reason for her not visiting her young cousin. She
remembered, it is true, that she had several times inquired of Mme. des
Laumes how they might contrive to meet, but she remembered it only in
a confused way, and besides did more than neutralise this slightly
humiliating reminiscence by murmuring, "After all, it isn't for me to
take the first step; I am at least twenty years older than she is." And
fortified by these unspoken words she flung her shoulders proudly back
until they seemed to part company with her bust, while her head, which
lay almost horizontally upon them, made one think of the 'stuck-on' head
of a pheasant which is brought to the table regally adorned with its
feathers. Not that she in the least degree resembled a pheasant, having
been endowed by nature with a short and squat and masculine figure; but
successive mortifications had given her a backward tilt, such as one may
observe in trees which have taken root on the very edge of a precipice
and are forced to grow backwards to preserve their balance. Since she
was obliged, in order to console herself for not being quite on a level
with the rest of the Guermantes, to repeat to herself incessantly that
it was owing to the uncompromising rigidity of her principles and pride
that she saw so little of them, the constant iteration had gradually
remoulded her body, and had given her a sort of 'bearing' which was
accepted by the plebeian as a sign of breeding, and even kindled, at
times, a momentary spark in the jaded eyes of old gentlemen in clubs.
Had anyone subjected Mme. de Gallardon's conversation to that form of
analysis which by noting the relative frequency of its several terms
would furnish him with the key to a ciphered message, he would at
once have remarked that no expression, not even the commonest forms
of speech, occurred in it nearly so often as "at my cousins the
Guermantes's," "at my aunt Guermantes's," "Elzear de Guermantes's
health," "my cousin Guermantes's box." If anyone spoke to her of a
distinguished personage, she would reply that, although she was not
personally acquainted with him, she had seen him hundreds of times at
her aunt Guermantes's, but she would utter this reply in so icy a tone,
with such a hollow sound, that it was at once quite clear that if
she did not know the ce