Page 579 - swanns-way

plans to the ‘faithful’ only as time went on; anyhow, from
Algiers they flitted to Tunis; then to Italy, Greece, Constan-
tinople, Asia Minor. They had been absent for nearly a year,
and Swann felt perfectly at ease and almost happy. Albeit
M. Verdurin had endeavoured to persuade the pianist and
Dr. Cottard that their respective aunt and patients had no
need of them, and that, in any event, it was most rash to
allow Mme. Cottard to return to Paris, where, Mme. Ver-
durin assured him, a revolution had just broken out, he was
obliged to grant them their liberty at Constantinople. And
the painter came home with them. One day, shortly after
the return of these four travellers, Swann, seeing an omni-
bus approach him, labelled ‘Luxembourg,’ and having some
business there, had jumped on to it and had found himself
sitting opposite Mme. Cottard, who was paying a round
of visits to people whose ‘day’ it was, in full review order,
with a plume in her hat, a silk dress, a muff, an umbrel-
la (which do for a parasol if the rain kept off), a card-case,
and a pair of white gloves fresh from the cleaners. Wearing
these badges of rank, she would, in fine weather, go on foot
from one house to another in the same neighbourhood, but
when she had to proceed to another district, would make
use of a transfer-ticket on the omnibus. For the first min-
ute or two, until the natural courtesy of the woman broke
through the starched surface of the doctor’s-wife, not being
certain, either, whether she ought to mention the Verdurins
before Swann, she produced, quite naturally, in her slow and
awkward, but not unattractive voice, which, every now and
then, was completely drowned by the rattling of the omni-

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