Page 526 - swanns-way

could possibly happen. I know nothing about them, but if
they’re anything like me, I find it quite boring enough to see
the people I do know; I’m sure if I had to see people I didn’t
know as well, even if they had ‘fought like heroes,’ I should
go stark mad. Besides, except when it’s an old friend like
you, whom one knows quite apart from that, I’m not sure
that ‘heroism’ takes one very far in society. It’s often quite
boring enough to have to give a dinner-party, but if one had
to offer one’s arm to Spartacus, to let him take one down...!
Really, no; it would never be Vercingetorix I should send for,
to make a fourteenth. I feel sure, I should keep him for re-
ally big ‘crushes.’ And as I never give any...’
‘Ah! Princess, it’s easy to see you’re not a Guermantes for
nothing. You have your share of it, all right, the ‘wit of the
Guermantes’!’
‘But people always talk about the wit of the Guermantes;
I never could make out why. Do you really know any others
who have it?’ she rallied him, with a rippling flow of laughter,
her features concentrated, yoked to the service of her ani-
mation, her eyes sparkling, blazing with a radiant sunshine
of gaiety which could be kindled only by such speeches—
even if the Princess had to make them herself—as were in
praise of h wit or of her beauty. ‘Look, there’s Swann talking
to your Cambremer woman; over there, beside old Saint-
Euverte, don’t you see him? Ask him to introduce you. But
hurry up, he seems to be just going!’
‘Did you notice how dreadfully ill he’s looking?’ asked
the General.
‘My precious Charles? Ah, he’s coming at last; I was be-

526 Swann’s Way