Page 399 - swanns-way

ten. I wonder if you know the Maître des Forges, which I
like even better than Serge Panine.’
‘Pardon me,’ said Swann with polite irony, ‘but I can
assure you that my want of admiration is almost equally di-
vided between those masterpieces.’
‘Really, now; that’s very interesting. And what don’t you
like about them? Won’t you ever change your mind? Per-
haps you think he’s a little too sad. Well, well, what I always
say is, one should never argue about plays or novels. Every-
one has his own way of looking at things, and what may be
horrible to you is, perhaps, just what I like best.’
She was interrupted by Forcheville’s addressing Swann.
What had happened was that, while Mme. Cottard was
discussing Francillon, Forcheville had been expressing to
Mme. Verdurin his admiration for what he called the ‘little
speech’ of the painter. ‘Your friend has such a flow of lan-
guage, such a memory!’ he had said to her when the painter
had come to a standstill, ‘I’ve seldom seen anything like it.
He’d make a first-rate preacher. By Jove, I wish I was like
that. What with him and M. Bréchot you’ve drawn two
lucky numbers to-night; though I’m not so sure that, simply
as a speaker, this one doesn’t knock spots off the Professor.
It comes more naturally with him, less like reading from
a book. Of course, the way he goes on, he does use some
words that are a bit realistic, and all that; but that’s quite the
thing nowadays; anyhow, it’s not often I’ve seen a man hold
the floor as cleverly as that, ‘hold the spittoon,’ as we used
to say in the regiment, where, by the way, we had a man he
rather reminds me of. You could take anything you liked—I

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