Page 328 - swanns-way

charming Mme. Verdurin had exclaimed, ‘I quite believe it!
Charming, indeed! But you don’t dare to confess that you
don’t know Vinteuil’s sonata; you have no right not to know
it!’—and the painter had gone on with, ‘Ah, yes, it’s a very
fine bit of work, isn’t it? Not, of course, if you want some-
thing ‘obvious,’ something ‘popular,’ but, I mean to say, it
makes a very great impression on us artists.’), none of them
seemed ever to have asked himself these questions, for none
of them was able to reply.
Even to one or two particular remarks made by Swann
on his favourite phrase, ‘D’you know, that’s a funny thing; I
had never noticed it; I may as well tell you that I don’t much
care about peering at things through a microscope, and
pricking myself on pin-points of difference; no; we don’t
waste time splitting hairs in this house; why not? well, it’s
not a habit of ours, that’s all,’ Mme. Verdurin replied, while
Dr. Cottard gazed at her with open-mouthed admiration,
and yearned to be able to follow her as she skipped lightly
from one stepping-stone to another of her stock of ready-
made phrases. Both he, however, and Mme. Cottard, with
a kind of common sense which is shared by many people
of humble origin, would always take care not to express an
opinion, or to pretend to admire a piece of music which they
would confess to each other, once they were safely at home,
that they no more understood than they could understand
the art of ‘Master’ Biche. Inasmuch as the public cannot rec-
ognise the charm, the beauty, even the outlines of nature
save in the stereotyped impressions of an art which they
have gradually assimilated, while an original artist starts by

328 Swann’s Way