Page 332 - swanns-way

M. Verdurin remarked that Swann had failed, all the
same, to appreciate the pianist’s aunt.
‘I dare say he felt a little strange, poor man,’ suggested
Mme. Verdurin. ‘You can’t expect him to catch the tone of
the house the first time he comes; like Cottard, who has
been one of our little ‘clan’ now for years. The first time
doesn’t count; it’s just for looking round and finding out
things. Odette, he understands all right, he’s to join us to-
morrow at the Châtelet. Perhaps you might call for him and
bring him.’ ‘No, he doesn’t want that.’
‘Oh, very well; just as you like. Provided he doesn’t fail us
at the last moment.’
Greatly to Mme. Verdurin’s surprise, he never failed
them. He would go to meet them, no matter where, at res-
taurants outside Paris (not that they went there much at first,
for the season had not yet begun), and more frequently at
the play, in which Mme. Verdurin delighted. One evening,
when they were dining at home, he heard her complain that
she had not one of those permits which would save her the
trouble of waiting at doors and standing in crowds, and say
how useful it would be to them at first-nights, and gala per-
formances at the Opera, and what a nuisance it had been,
not having one, on the day of Gambetta’s funeral. Swann
never spoke of his distinguished friends, but only of such
as might be regarded as detrimental, whom, therefore, he
thought it snobbish, and in not very good taste to conceal;
while he frequented the Faubourg Saint-Germain he had
come to include, in the latter class, all his friends in the of-
ficial world of the Third Republic, and so broke in, without

332 Swann’s Way