Page 525 - swanns-way

‘But I believe, all the same, that they’ve got some lovely
things; why, they must have that famous mosaic table on
which the Treaty of...’
‘Oh, I don’t deny, they may have things that are inter-
esting enough from the historic point of view. But things
like that can’t, ever, be beautiful ... because they’re simply
horrible! I’ve got things like that myself, that came to Ba-
sin from the Montesquious. Only, they’re up in the attics
at Guermantes, where nobody ever sees them. But, after
all, that’s not the point, I would fly to see them, with Ba-
sin; I would even go to see them among all their sphinxes
and brasses, if I knew them, but—I don’t know them! D’you
know, I was always taught, when I was a little girl, that it was
not polite to call on people one didn’t know.’ She assumed a
tone of childish gravity. ‘And so I am just doing what I was
taught to do. Can’t you see those good people, with a totally
strange woman bursting into their house? Why, I might get
a most hostile reception.’
And she coquettishly enhanced the charm of the smile
which the idea had brought to her lips, by giving to her blue
eyes, which were fixed on the General, a gentle, dreamy ex-
pression.
‘My dear Princess, you know that they’d be simply wild
with joy.’
‘No, why?’ she inquired, with the utmost vivacity, either
so as to seem unaware that it would be because she was one
of the first ladies in France, or so as to have the pleasure of
hearing the General tell her so. ‘Why? How can you tell?
Perhaps they would think it the most unpleasant thing that

525