Page 648 - swanns-way

Mahon went.’
‘I shouldn’t remind her of it, if I were you. She is now
Mme. Swann, the wife of a gentleman in the Jockey Club, a
friend of the Prince of Wales. Apart from that, though, she
is wonderful still.’
‘Oh, but you ought to have known her then; Gad, she was
lovely! She lived in a very odd little house with a lot of Chi-
nese stuff. I remember, we were bothered all the time by the
newsboys, shouting outside; in the end she made me get up
and go.’
Without listening to these memories, I could feel all
about her the indistinct murmur of fame. My heart leaped
with impatience when I thought that a few seconds must
still elapse before all these people, among whom I was dis-
mayed not to find a certain mulatto banker who (or so I felt)
had a contempt for me, were to see the unknown youth, to
whom they had not, so far, been paying the slightest atten-
tion, salute (without knowing her, it was true, but I thought
that I had sufficient authority since my parents knew her
husband and I was her daughter’s playmate) this woman
whose reputation for beauty, for misconduct, and for ele-
gance was universal. But I was now close to Mme. Swann;
I pulled off my hat with so lavish, so prolonged a gesture
that she could not repress a smile. People laughed. As for
her, she had never seen me with Gilberte, she did not know
my name, but I was for her—like one of the keepers in the
Bois, like the boatman, or the ducks on the lake, to which
she threw scraps of bread—one of the minor personages,
familiar, nameless, as devoid of individual character as a

648 Swann’s Way