Page 320 - swanns-way

‘I am glad you appreciate my sofa,’ replied Mme. Verdu-
rin, ‘and I warn you that if you expect ever to see another
like it you may as well abandon the idea at once. They nev-
er made any more like it. And these little chairs, too, are
perfect marvels. You can look at them in a moment. The
emblems in each of the bronze mouldings correspond to the
subject of the tapestry on the chair; you know, you combine
amusement with instruction when you look at them;—I can
promise you a delightful time, I assure you. Just look at the
little border around the edges; here, look, the little vine on
a red background in this one, the Bear and the Grapes. Isn’t
it well drawn? What do you say? I think they knew a thing
or two about design! Doesn’t it make your mouth water, this
vine? My husband makes out that I am not fond of fruit,
because I eat less than he does. But not a bit of it, I am greed-
ier than any of you, but I have no need to fill my mouth
with them when I can feed on them with my eyes. What are
you all laughing at now, pray? Ask the Doctor; he will tell
you that those grapes act on me like a regular purge. Some
people go to Fontainebleau for cures; I take my own little
Beauvais cure here. But, M. Swann, you mustn’t run away
without feeling the little bronze mouldings on the backs.
Isn’t it an exquisite surface? No, no, not with your whole
hand like that; feel them property!’
‘If Mme. Verdurin is going to start playing about with
her bronzes,’ said the painter, ‘we shan’t get any music to-
night.’
‘Be quiet, you wretch! And yet we poor women,’ she went
on, ‘are forbidden pleasures far less voluptuous than this.

320 Swann’s Way