Page 647 - swanns-way

on days when I felt that I had the courage to pass close by
her I would drag Françoise off in that direction; until the
moment came when I saw Mme. Swann, letting trail behind
her the long train of her lilac skirt, dressed, as the popu-
lace imagine queens to be dressed, in rich attire such as no
other woman might wear, lowering her eyes now and then
to study the handle of her parasol, paying scant attention
to the passers-by, as though the important thing for her,
her one object in being there, was to take exercise, without
thinking that she was seen, and that every head was turned
towards her. Sometimes, however, when she had looked
back to call her dog to her, she would cast, almost imper-
ceptibly, a sweeping glance round about.
Those even who did not know her were warned by some-
thing exceptional, something beyond the normal in her—or
perhaps by a telepathic suggestion such as would move an
ignorant audience to a frenzy of applause when Berma was
‘sublime’—that she must be some one well-known. They
would ask one another, ‘Who is she?’, or sometimes would
interrogate a passing stranger, or would make a mental note
of how she was dressed so as to fix her identity, later, in the
mind of a friend better informed than themselves, who
would at once enlighten them. Another pair, half-stopping
in their walk, would exchange:
‘You know who that is? Mme. Swann! That conveys noth-
ing to you? Odette de Crécy, then?’
‘Odette de Crécy! Why, I thought as much. Those great,
sad eyes... But I say, you know, she can’t be as young as she
was once, eh? I remember, I had her on the day that Mac-

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