l. We could
spend a most pleasant evening together."

"I'm sure we could; why not come down to Guermantes? My mother-in-law
would be wild with joy. It's supposed to be very ugly down there, but
I must say, I find the neighborhood not at all unattractive; I have a
horror of 'picturesque spots'."

"I know it well, it's delightful!" replied Swann. "It's almost too
beautiful, too much alive for me just at present; it's a country to
be happy in. It's perhaps because I have lived there, but things there
speak to me so. As soon as a breath of wind gets up, and the cornfields
begin to stir, I feel that some one is going to appear suddenly, that
I am going to hear some news; and those little houses by the water's
edge... I should be quite wretched!"

"Oh! my dearest Charles, do take care; there's that appalling Rampillon
woman; she's seen me; hide me somewhere, do tell me again, quickly, what
it was that happened to her; I get so mixed up; she's just married off
her daughter, or her lover (I never can remember),--perhaps both--to
each other! Oh, no, I remember now, she's been dropped by her Prince...
Pretend to be talking, so that the poor old Berenice sha'n't come and
invite me to dinner. Anyhow, I'm going. Listen, my dearest Charles, now
that I have seen you, once in a blue moon, won't you let me carry you
off and take you to the Princesse de Parme's, who would be so pleased
to see you (you know), and Basin too, for that matter; he's meeting me
there. If one didn't get news of you, sometimes, from Meme... Remember,
I never see you at all now!"

Swann declined. Having told M. de Charlus that, on leaving Mme. de
Saint-Euverte's, he would go straight home, he did not care to run the
risk, by going on now to the Princesse de Parme's, of missing a message
which he had, all the time, been hoping to see brought in to him by one
of the footmen, during the party, and which he was perhaps going to find
left with his own porter, at home.

"Poor Swann," said Mme. des Laumes that night to her husband; "he is
always charming, but he does look so dreadfully unhappy. You will see
for yourself, for he has promised to dine with us one of these days. I
do feel that it's really absurd that a man of his intelligence should
let himself be made to suffer by a creature of that kind, who isn't even
interesting, for they tell me, she's an absolute idiot!" she concluded
with the wisdom invariably shewn by people who, not being in love
themselves,