Page 317 - swanns-way

beginning to be clouded over by a cataract, and quickly, as
though she had only just time to avoid some indecent sight
or to parry a mortal blow, burying her face in her hands,
which completely engulfed it, and prevented her from see-
ing anything at all, she would appear to be struggling to
suppress, to eradicate a laugh which, were she to give way
to it, must inevitably leave her inanimate. So, stupefied
with the gaiety of the ‘faithful,’ drunken with comradeship,
scandal and asseveration, Mme. Verdurin, perched on her
high seat like a cage-bird whose biscuit has been steeped in
mulled wine, would sit aloft and sob with fellow-feeling.
Meanwhile M. Verdurin, after first asking Swann’s
permission to light his pipe (“No ceremony here, you under-
stand; we’re all pals!’), went and begged the young musician
to sit down at the piano.
‘Leave him alone; don’t bother him; he hasn’t come here
to be tormented,’ cried Mme. Verdurin. ‘I won’t have him
tormented.’
‘But why on earth should it bother him?’ rejoined M.
Verdurin. ‘I’m sure M. Swann has never heard the sonata in
F sharp which we discovered; he is going to play us the pi-
anoforte arrangement.’
‘No, no, no, not my sonata!’ she screamed, ‘I don’t want
to be made to cry until I get a cold in the head, and neu-
ralgia all down my face, like last time; thanks very much,
I don’t intend to repeat that performance; you are all very
kind and considerate; it is easy to see that none of you will
have to stay in bed, for a week.’
This little scene, which was re-enacted as often as the

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