Page 393 - swanns-way

that annex to social existence which belongs, strictly speak-
ing, to the domain of intelligence, namely, conversation,
that Swann could not see anything in Brichot’s pleasantries;
to him they were merely pedantic, vulgar, and disgusting-
ly coarse. He was shocked, too, being accustomed to good
manners, by the rude, almost barrack-room tone which this
student-in-arms adopted, no matter to whom he was speak-
ing. Finally, perhaps, he had lost all patience that evening as
he watched Mme. Verdurin welcoming, with such unnec-
essary warmth, this Forcheville fellow, whom it had been
Odette’s unaccountable idea to bring to the house. Feeling
a little awkward, with Swann there also, she had asked him
on her arrival: ‘What do you think of my guest?’
And he, suddenly realising for the first time that
Forcheville, whom he had known for years, could actually
attract a woman, and was quite a good specimen of a man,
had retorted: ‘Beastly!’ He had, certainly, no idea of being
jealous of Odette, but did not feel quite so happy as usu-
al, and when Brichot, having begun to tell them the story
of Blanche of Castile’s mother, who, according to him, ‘had
been with Henry Planta-genet for years before they were
married,’ tried to prompt Swann to beg him to continue the
story, by interjecting ‘Isn’t that so, M. Swann?’ in the mar-
tial accents which one uses in order to get down to the level
of an unintelligent rustic or to put the ‘fear of God’ into a
trooper, Swann cut his story short, to the intense fury of
their hostess, by begging to be excused for taking so little
interest in Blanche of Castile, as he had something that he
wished to ask the painter. He, it appeared, had been that af-

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