Page 510 - swanns-way

that her own consciousness of her Guermantes connection
could not be made externally manifest in visible character-
er like those which, in the mosaics in Byzantine churches,
placed one beneath another, inscribe in a vertical column
by the side of some Sacred Personage the words which he
is supposed to be uttering. At this moment she was pon-
dering the fact that she had never received an invitation, or
even call, from her young cousin the Princesse des Laumes,
during the six years that had already elapsed since the lat-
ter’s marriage. The thought filled her with anger—and with
pride; for, by virtue of having told everyone who expressed
surprise at never seeing her at Mme. des Laumes’s, that it
was because of the risk of meeting the Princesse Mathilde
there—a degradation which her own family, the truest and
bluest of Legitimists, would never have forgiven her, she
had come gradually to believe that this actually was the rea-
son for her not visiting her young cousin. She remembered,
it is true, that she had several times inquired of Mme. des
Laumes how they might contrive to meet, but she remem-
bered it only in a confused way, and besides did more than
neutralise this slightly humiliating reminiscence by mur-
muring, ‘After all, it isn’t for me to take the first step; I am at
least twenty years older than she is.’ And fortified by these
unspoken words she flung her shoulders proudly back until
they seemed to part company with her bust, while her head,
which lay almost horizontally upon them, made one think
of the ‘stuck-on’ head of a pheasant which is brought to the
table regally adorned with its feathers. Not that she in the
least degree resembled a pheasant, having been endowed by

510 Swann’s Way