Page 518 - swanns-way

would gladly have come to their houses, and that she had
been prevented from doing so only by some princely occur-
rence which they were flattered to find competing with their
own humble entertainment. And then, as she belonged to
that witty ‘Guermantes set’—in which there survived some-
thing of the alert mentality, stripped of all commonplace
phrases and conventional sentiments, which dated from
Mérimée, and found its final expression in the plays of
Meilhac and Halévy—she adapted its formula so as to suit
even her social engagements, transposed it into the courtesy
which was always struggling to be positive and precise, to
approximate itself to the plain truth. She would never de-
velop at any length to a hostess the expression of her anxiety
to be present at her party; she found it more pleasant to dis-
close to her all the various little incidents on which it would
depend whether it was or was not possible for her to come.
‘Listen, and I’ll explain,’ she began to Mme. de Gallar-
don. ‘To-morrow evening I must go to a friend of mine, who
has been pestering me to fix a day for ages. If she takes us
to the theatre afterwards, then I can’t possibly come to you,
much as I should love to; but if we just stay in the house, I
know there won’t be anyone else there, so I can slip away.’
‘Tell me, have you seen your friend M. Swann?’
‘No! my precious Charles! I never knew he was here.
Where is he? I must catch his eye.’
‘It’s a funny thing that he should come to old Saint-Eu-
verte’s,’ Mme. de Gallardon went on. ‘Oh, I know he’s very
clever,’ meaning by that ‘very cunning,’ ‘but that makes no
difference; fancy a Jew here, and she the sister and sister-in-

518 Swann’s Way