Page 292 - swanns-way

ally the painter who was in favour there that year—would
‘spin,’ as M. Verdurin put it, ‘a damned funny yarn that
made ‘em all split with laughter,’ and especially Mme. Ver-
durin, for whom—so strong was her habit of taking literally
the figurative accounts of her emotions—Dr. Cottard, who
was then just starting in general practice, would ‘really have
to come one day and set her jaw, which she had dislocated
with laughing too much.’
Evening dress was barred, because you were all ‘good
pals,’ and didn’t want to look like the ‘boring people’ who
were to be avoided like the plague, and only asked to the
big evenings, which were given as seldom as possible, and
then only if it would amuse the painter or make the mu-
sician better known. The rest of the time you were quite
happy playing charades and having supper in fancy dress,
and there was no need to mingle any strange element with
the little ‘clan.’
But just as the ‘good pals’ came to take a more and more
prominent place in Mme. Verdurin’s life, so the ‘bores,’ the
‘nuisances’ grew to include everybody and everything that
kept her friends away from her, that made them sometimes
plead ‘previous engagements,’ the mother of one, the pro-
fessional duties of another, the ‘little place in the country’
of a third. If Dr. Cottard felt bound to say good night as
soon as they rose from table, so as to go back to some pa-
tient who was seriously ill; ‘I don’t know,’ Mme. Verdurin
would say, ‘I’m sure it will do him far more good if you don’t
go disturbing him again this evening; he will have a good
night without you; to-morrow morning you can go round

292 Swann’s Way