Page 411 - swanns-way

placable republicanism, she still said instinctively ‘the de
La Trémoïlles,’ or, rather (by an abbreviation sanctified by
the usage of music-hall singers and the writers of the ‘cap-
tions’ beneath caricatures, who elide the ‘de’), ‘the d’La
Trémoïlles,’ but she corrected herself at once to ‘Madame
La Trémoïlle.—The Duchess, as Swann calls her,’ she added
ironically, with a smile which proved that she was merely
quoting, and would not, herself, accept the least responsi-
bility for a classification so puerile and absurd.
‘I don’t mind saying that I thought him extremely stu-
pid.’
M. Verdurin took it up. ‘He’s not sincere. He’s a crafty
customer, always hovering between one side and the other.
He’s always trying to run with the hare and hunt with the
hounds. What a difference between him and Forcheville.
There, at least, you have a man who tells you straight out
what he thinks. Either you agree with him or you don’t.
Not like the other fellow, who’s never definitely fish or fowl.
Did you notice, by the way, that Odette seemed all out for
Forcheville, and I don’t blame her, either. And then, after
all, if Swann tries to come the man of fashion over us, the
champion of distressed Duchesses, at any rate the other
man has got a title; he’s always Comte de Forcheville!’ he let
the words slip delicately from his lips, as though, familiar
with every page of the history of that dignity, he were mak-
ing a scrupulously exact estimate of its value, in relation to
others of the sort.
‘I don’t mind saying,’ Mme. Verdurin went on, ‘that he
saw fit to utter some most venomous, and quite absurd in-

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