PART II (continued 8)

M. de Guermantes returned, and was presently joined by his wife, all ready now for the evening, tall and proud in a gown of red satin the skirt of which was bordered with spangles. She had in her hair a long ostrich feather dyed purple, and over her shoulders a tulle scarf of the same red as her dress. “How nice it is to have one’s hat lined with leather,” said the Duchess, whom nothing escaped. “However, with you, Charles, everything is always charming, whether it’s what you wear or what you say, what you read or what you do.” Swann meanwhile, without apparently listening, was considering the Duchess as he would have studied the canvas of a master, and then sought her gaze, making with his lips the grimace which implies: “The devil!” Mme. de Guermantes rippled with laughter. “So my clothes please you? I’m delighted. But I must say that they don’t please me much,” she went on with a sulking air. “Good Lord, what a bore it is to have to dress up and go out when one would ever so much rather stay at home!” “What magnificent rubies!” “Ah! my dear Charles, at 378least one can see that you know what you’re talking about, you’re not like that brute Monserfeuil who asked me if they were real. I must say that I’ve never seen anything quite like them. They were a present from the Grand Duchess. They’re a little too large for my liking, a little too like claret glasses filled to the brim, but I’ve put them on because we shall be seeing the Grand Duchess this evening at Marie-Gilbert’s,” added Mme. de Guermantes, never suspecting that this assertion destroyed the force of those previously made by the Duke. “What’s on at the Princess’s?” inquired Swann. “Practically nothing,” the Duke hastened to reply, the question having made him think that Swann was not invited. “What’s that, Basin? When all the highways and hedgerows have been scoured? It will be a deathly crush. What will be pretty, though,” she went on, looking wistfully at Swann, “if the storm I can feel in the air now doesn’t break, will be those marvellous gardens. You know them, of course. I was there a month ago, at the time when the lilacs were in flower, you can’t have any idea how lovely they were. And then the fountain, really, it’s Versailles in Paris.” “What sort of person is the Princess?” I asked. “Why, you know quite well, you’ve seen her here, she’s as beautiful as the day, also rather an idiot. Very nice, in spite of all her Germanic high-and-mightiness, full of good nature and stupid mistakes.” Swann was too subtle not to perceive that the Duchess, in this speech, was trying to shew the “Guermantes wit”, and at no great cost to herself, for she was only serving up in a less perfect form an old saying of her own. Nevertheless, to prove to the Duchess that he appreciated her intention to be, and as though she had really succeeded in being 379funny, he smiled with a slightly forced air, causing me by this particular form of insincerity the same feeling of awkwardness that used to disturb me long ago when I heard my parents discussing with M. Vinteuil the corruption of certain sections of society (when they knew very well that a corruption far greater sat enthroned at Montjouvain), Legrandin colouring his utterances for the benefit of fools, choosing delicate epithets which he knew perfectly well would not be understood by a rich or smart but illiterate public. “Come now, Oriane, what on earth are you saying?” broke in M. de Guermantes. “Marie a fool? Why, she has read everything, she’s as musical as a fiddle.” “But, my poor little Basin, you’re as innocent as a new-born babe. As if one could not be all that, and rather an idiot as well. Idiot is too strong a word; no, she’s in the clouds, she’s Hesse-Darmstadt, Holy Roman Empire, and wa-wa-wa. Her pronunciation alone makes me tired. But I quite admit that she’s a charming looney. Simply the idea of stepping down from her German throne to go and marry, in the most middle-class way, a private citizen. It is true that she chose him! Yes, it’s quite true,” she went on, turning to me, “you don’t know Gilbert. Let me give you an idea of him, he took to his bed once because I had left a card on Mme. Carnot.... But, my little Charles,” said the Duchess, changing the conversation when she saw that the story of the card left on the Carnots appeared to irritate M. de Guermantes, “you know, you’ve never sent me that photograph of our Knights of Rhodes, whom I’ve learned to love through you, and I am so anxious to make their acquaintance.” The Duke meanwhile had not taken his eyes from his wife’s face. “Oriane, you might 380at least tell the story properly and not cut out half. I ought to explain,” he corrected, addressing Swann, “that the British Ambassadress at that time, who was a very worthy woman, but lived rather in the moon and was in the habit of making up these odd combinations, conceived the distinctly quaint idea of inviting us with the President and his wife. We were—Oriane herself was rather surprised, especially as the Ambassadress knew quite enough of the people we knew not to invite us, of all things, to so ill-assorted a gathering. There was a Minister there who is a swindler, however I pass over all that, we had not been warned in time, were caught in the trap, and, I’m bound to admit, all these people behaved most civilly to us. Only, once was enough. Mme. de Guermantes, who does not often do me the honour of consulting me, felt it incumbent upon her to leave a card in the course of the following week at the Elysée. Gilbert may perhaps have gone rather far in regarding it as a stain upon our name. But it must not be forgotten that, politics apart, M. Carnot, who for that matter filled his post quite adequately, was the grandson of a member of the Revolutionary Tribunal which caused the death of eleven of our people in a single day.” “In that case, Basin, why did you go every week to dine at Chantilly? The Duc d’Aumale was just as much the grandson of a member of the Revolutionary Tribunal, with this difference, that Carnot was a brave man and Philippe Egalité a wretched scoundrel.” “Excuse my interrupting you to explain that I did send the photograph,” said Swann. “I can’t understand how it hasn’t reached you.” “It doesn’t altogether surprise me,” said the Duchess, “my servants tell me only what they think fit. They 381probably do not approve of the Order of Saint John.” And she rang the bell. “You know, Oriane, that when I used to go to Chantilly it was without enthusiasm.” “Without enthusiasm, but with a nightshirt in a bag, in case the Prince asked you to stay, which for that matter he very rarely did, being a perfect cad like all the Orléans lot. Do you know who else are to be dining at Mme. de Saint-Euverte’s?” Mme. de Guermantes asked her husband. “Besides the people you know already, she’s asked at the last moment King Theodosius’s brother.” At these tidings the Duchess’s features breathed contentment and her speech boredom. “Oh, good heavens, more princes!” “But that one is well-mannered and intelligent,” Swann suggested. “Not altogether, though,” replied the Duchess, apparently seeking for words that would give more novelty to the thought expressed. “Have you ever noticed with princes that the best-mannered among them are not really well-mannered? They must always have an opinion about everything. Then, as they have none of their own, they spend the first half of their lives asking us ours and the other half serving it up to us second-hand. They positively must be able to say that one piece has been well played and the next not so well. When there is no difference. Listen, this little Theodosius junior (I forget his name) asked me what one called an orchestral motif. I replied,” said the Duchess, her eyes sparkling while a laugh broke from her beautiful red lips: “‘One calls it an orchestral motif.’ I don’t think he was any too well pleased, really. Oh, my dear Charles,” she went on, “what a bore it can be, dining out. There are evenings when one would sooner die! It is true that dying may be perhaps just 382as great a bore, because we don’t know what it’s like.” A servant appeared. It was the young lover who used to have trouble with the porter, until the Duchess, in her kindness of heart, brought about an apparent peace between them. “Am I to go up this evening to inquire for M. le Marquis d’Osmond?” he asked. “Most certainly not, nothing before to-morrow morning. In fact I don’t want you to remain in the house to-night. The only thing that will happen will be that his footman, who knows you, will come to you with the latest report and send you out after us. Get off, go anywhere you like, have a woman, sleep out, but I don’t want to see you here before to-morrow morning.” An immense joy overflowed from the footman’s face. He would at last be able to spend long hours with his lady-love, whom he had practically ceased to see ever since, after a final scene with the porter, the Duchess had considerately explained to him that it would be better, to avoid further conflicts, if he did not go out at all. He floated, at the thought of having an evening free at last, in a happiness which the Duchess saw and guessed its reason. She felt, so to speak, a tightening of the heart and an itching in all her limbs at the sight of this happiness which an amorous couple were snatching behind her back, concealing themselves from her, which left her irritated and jealous. “No, Basin, let him stay here; I say, he’s not to stir out of the house.” “But, Oriane, that’s absurd, the house is crammed with servants, and you have the costumier’s people coming as well at twelve to dress us for this show. There’s absolutely nothing for him to do, and he’s the only one who’s a friend of Mama’s footman; I would a thousand times rather get him right 383away from the house.” “Listen, Basin, let me do what I want, I shall have a message for him to take in the evening, as it happens, I can’t tell yet at what time. In any case you’re not to go out of the house for a single instant, do you hear?” she said to the despairing footman. If there were continual quarrels, and if servants did not stay long with the Duchess, the person to whose charge this guerrilla warfare was to be laid was indeed irremovable, but it was not the porter; no doubt for the rougher tasks, for the martyrdoms that it was more tiring to inflict, for the quarrels which ended in blows, the Duchess entrusted the heavier instruments to him; but even then he played his part without the least suspicion that he had been cast for it. Like the household servants, he admired the Duchess for her kindness of heart; and footmen of little discernment who came back, after leaving her service, to visit Françoise used to say that the Duke’s house would have been the finest “place” in Paris if it had not been for the porter’s lodge. The Duchess “played” the lodge on them, just as at different times clericalism, freemasonry, the Jewish peril have been played on the public. Another footman came into the room. “Why have not they brought up the package that M. Swann sent here? And, by the way (you’ve heard, Charles, that Mama is seriously ill?), Jules went up to inquire for news of M. le Marquis d’Osmond: has he come back yet?” “He’s just come this instant, M. le Duc. They’re waiting from one moment to the next for M. le Marquis to pass away.” “Ah! He’s alive!” exclaimed the Duke with a sigh of relief. “That’s all right, that’s all right: sold again, Satan! While there’s life there’s hope,” the Duke announced to us with a joyful 384air. “They’ve been talking about him as though he were dead and buried. In a week from now he’ll be fitter than I am.” “It’s the Doctors who said that he wouldn’t last out the evening. One of them wanted to call again during the night. The head one said it was no use. M. le Marquis would be dead by then; they’ve only kept him alive by injecting him with camphorated oil.” “Hold your tongue, you damned fool,” cried the Duke in a paroxysm of rage. “Who the devil asked you to say all that? You haven’t understood a word of what they told you.” “It wasn’t me they told, it was Jules.” “Will you hold your tongue!” roared the Duke, and, turning to Swann, “What a blessing he’s still alive! He will regain his strength gradually, don’t you know. Still alive, after being in such a critical state, that in itself is an excellent sign. One mustn’t expect everything at once. It can’t be at all unpleasant, a little injection of camphorated oil.” He rubbed his hands. “He’s alive; what more could anyone want? After going through all that he’s gone through, it’s a great step forward. Upon my word, I envy him having such a temperament. Ah! these invalids, you know, people do all sorts of little things for them that they don’t do for us. Now to-day there was a devil of a cook who sent me up a leg of mutton with béarnaise sauce—it was done to a turn, I must admit, but just for that very reason I took so much of it that it’s still lying on my stomach. However, that doesn’t make people come to inquire for me as they do for dear Amanien. We do too much inquiring. It only tires him. We must let him have room to breathe. They’re killing the poor fellow by sending round to him all the time.” “Well,” said the Duchess to the footman as he was leaving the room, “I 385gave orders for the envelope containing a photograph which M. Swann sent me to be brought up here.” “Madame la Duchesse, it is so large that I didn’t know if I could get it through the door. We have left it in the hall. Does Madame la Duchesse wish me to bring it up?” “Oh, in that case, no; they ought to have told me, but if it’s so big I shall see it in a moment when I come downstairs.” “I forgot to tell Mme. la Duchesse that Mme. la Comtesse Molé left a card this morning for Mme. la Duchesse.” “What, this morning?” said the Duchess with an air of disapproval, feeling that so young a woman ought not to take the liberty of leaving cards in the morning. “About ten o’clock, Madame la Duchesse.” “Shew me the cards.” “In any case, Oriane, when you say that it was a funny idea on Marie’s part to marry Gilbert,” went on the Duke, reverting to the original topic of conversation, “it is you who have an odd way of writing history. If either of them was a fool, it was Gilbert, for having married of all people a woman so closely related to the King of the Belgians, who has usurped the name of Brabant which belongs to us. To put it briefly, we are of the same blood as the Hesses, and of the elder branch. It is always stupid to talk about oneself,” he apologised to me, “but after all, whenever we have been not only at Darmstadt, but even at Cassel and all over Electoral Hesse, the Landgraves have always, all of them, been most courteous in giving us precedence as being of the elder branch.” “But really, Basin, you don’t mean to tell me that a person who was a Major in every regiment in her country, who had been engaged to the King of Sweden.” “Oriane, that is too much; anyone would think that you didn’t know that the King of Sweden’s grandfather 386was tilling the soil at Pau when we had been ruling the roost for nine hundred years throughout the whole of Europe.” “That doesn’t alter the fact that if somebody were to say in the street: ‘Hallo, there’s the King of Sweden,’ everyone would at once rush to see him as far as the Place de la Concorde, and if he said: ‘There’s M. de Guermantes,’ nobody would know who M. de Guermantes was.” “What an argument!” “Besides, I never can understand how, once the title of Duke of Brabant has passed to the Belgian Royal Family, you can continue to claim it.”

The footman returned with the Comtesse Molé’s card, or rather what she had left in place of a card. Alleging that she had none on her, she had taken from her pocket a letter addressed to herself, and keeping the contents had handed in the envelope which bore the inscription: “La Comtesse Molé.” As the envelope was rather large, following the fashion in notepaper which prevailed that year, this manuscript “card” was almost twice the size of an ordinary visiting card. “That is what people call Mme. Molé’s ‘simplicity’,” said the Duchess ironically. “She wants to make us think that she had no cards on her, and to shew her originality. But we know all about that, don’t we, my little Charles, we are quite old enough and quite original enough ourselves to see through the tricks of a little lady who has only been going about for four years. She is charming, but she doesn’t seem to me, all the same, to be quite ‘big’ enough to imagine that she can take the world by surprise with so little effort as merely leaving an envelope instead of a card and leaving it at ten o’clock in the morning. Her old mother mouse will shew her that she knows a thing or two about that.” 387Swann could not help smiling at the thought that the Duchess, who was, incidentally, a trifle jealous of Mme. de Molé’s success, would find it quite in accordance with the “Guermantes wit” to make some impertinent retort to her visitor. “So far as the title of Duc de Brabant is concerned, I’ve told you a hundred times, Oriane...” the Duke continued, but the Duchess, without listening, cut him short. “But, my little Charles, I’m longing to see your photograph.” “Ah! Extinctor draconis latrator Anubis,” said Swann. “Yes, it was so charming what you said about that when you were comparing the Saint George at Venice. But I don’t understand: why Anubis?” “What’s the one like who was an ancestor of Babal?” asked M. de Guermantes. “You want to see his bauble?” retorted his wife, dryly, to shew that she herself scorned the pun. “I want to see them all,” she added. “Listen, Charles, let us wait downstairs till the carriage comes,” said the Duke; “you can pay your call on us in the hall, because my wife won’t let us have any peace until she’s seen your photograph. I am less impatient, I must say,” he added with a satisfied air. “I am not easily moved myself, but she would see us all dead rather than miss it.” “I am entirely of your opinion, Basin,” said the Duchess, “let us go into the hall; we shall at least know why we have come down from your study, while we shall never know how we have come down from the Counts of Brabant.” “I’ve told you a hundred times how the title came into the House of Hesse,” said the Duke (while we were going downstairs to look at the photograph, and I thought of those that Swann used to bring me at Combray), “through the marriage of a Brabant in 1241 with the daughter of the last Landgrave 388of Thuringia and Hesse, so that really it is the title of Prince of Hesse that came to the House of Brabant rather than that of Duke of Brabant to the House of Hesse. You will remember that our battle-cry was that of the Dukes of Brabant: ‘Limbourg to her conqueror!’ until we exchanged the arms of Brabant for those of Guermantes, in which I think myself that we were wrong, and the example of the Gramonts will not make me change my opinion.” “But,” replied Mme. de Guermantes, “as it is the King of the Belgians who is the conqueror.... Besides the Belgian Crown Prince calls himself Duc de Brabant.” “But, my dear child, your argument will not hold water for a moment. You know as well as I do that there are titles of pretension which can perfectly well exist even if the territory is occupied by usurpers. For instance, the King of Spain describes himself equally as Duke of Brabant, claiming in virtue of a possession less ancient than ours, but more ancient than that of the King of the Belgians. He calls himself also Duke of Burgundy, King of the Indies Occidental and Oriental, and Duke of Milan. Well, he is no more in possession of Burgundy, the Indies or Brabant than I possess Brabant myself, or the Prince of Hesse either, for that matter. The King of Spain likewise proclaims himself King of Jerusalem, as does the Austrian Emperor, and Jerusalem belongs to neither one nor the other.” He stopped for a moment with an awkward feeling that the mention of Jerusalem might have embarrassed Swann, in view of “current events”, but only went on more rapidly: “What you said just now might be said of anyone. We were at one time Dukes of Aumale, a duchy that has passed as regularly to the House of France as Joinville and Chevreuse 389have to the House of Albert. We make no more claim to those titles than to that of Marquis de Noirmoutiers, which was at one time ours, and became perfectly regularly the appanage of the House of La Trémoïlle, but because certain cessions are valid, it does not follow that they all are. For instance,” he went on, turning to me, “my sister-in-law’s son bears the title of Prince d’Agrigente, which comes to us from Joan the Mad, as that of Prince de Tarente comes to the La Trémoïlles. Well, Napoleon went and gave this title of Tarente to a soldier, who may have been admirable in the ranks, but in doing so the Emperor was disposing of what belonged to him even less than Napoleon III when he created a Duc de Montmorency, since Périgord had at least a mother who was a Montmorency, while the Tarente of Napoléon I had no more Tarente about him than Napoleon’s wish that he should become so. That did not prevent Chaix d’Est-Ange, alluding to our uncle Condé, from asking the Procureur Impérial if he had picked up the title of Duc de Montmorency in the moat of Vincennes.”

“Listen, Basin, I ask for nothing better than to follow you to the ditches of Vincennes, or even to Taranto. And that reminds me, Charles, of what I was going to say to you when you were telling me about your Saint George at Venice. We have an idea, Basin and I, of spending next spring in Italy and Sicily. If you were to come with us, just think what a difference it would make! I’m not thinking only of the pleasure of seeing you, but imagine, after all you’ve told me so often about the remains of the Norman Conquest and of ancient history, imagine what a trip like that would become if you came with us! I mean to say that even Basin—what am I saying, Gilbert—would 390benefit by it, because I feel that even his claims to the throne of Naples and all that sort of thing would interest me if they were explained by you in old romanesque churches in little villages perched on hills like primitive paintings. But now we’re going to look at your photograph. Open the envelope,” said the Duchess to a footman. “Please, Oriane, not this evening; you can look at it to-morrow,” implored the Duke, who had already been making signs of alarm to me on seeing the huge size of the photograph. “But I like to look at it with Charles,” said the Duchess, with a smile at once artificially concupiscent and psychologically subtle, for in her desire to be friendly to Swann she spoke of the pleasure which she would have in looking at the photograph as though it were the pleasure an invalid feels he would find in eating an orange, or as though she had managed to combine an escapade with her friends with giving information to a biographer as to some of her favourite pursuits. “All right, he will come again to see you, on purpose,” declared the Duke, to whom his wife was obliged to yield. “You can spend three hours in front of it, if that amuses you,” he added ironically. “But where are you going to stick a toy of those dimensions?” “Why, in my room, of course. I like to have it before my eyes.” “Oh, just as you please; if it’s in your room, probably I shall never see it,” said the Duke, without thinking of the revelation he was thus blindly making of the negative character of his conjugal relations. “Very well, you will undo it with the greatest care,” Mme. de Guermantes told the servant, multiplying her instructions out of politeness to Swann. “And see that you don’t crumple the envelope, either.” “So even the envelope has got to be respected!” 391the Duke murmured to me, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “But, Swann,” he added, “I, who am only a poor married man and thoroughly prosaic, what I wonder at is how on earth you managed to find an envelope that size. Where did you pick it up?” “Oh, at the photographer’s; they’re always sending out things like that. But the man is a fool, for I see he’s written on it ‘The Duchesse de Guermantes,’ without putting ‘Madame’.” “I’ll forgive him for that,” said the Duchesse carelessly; then, seeming to be struck by a sudden idea which enlivened her, checked a faint smile; but at once returning to Swann: “Well, you don’t say whether you’re coming to Italy with us?” “Madame, I am really afraid that it will not be possible.” “Indeed! Mme. de Montmorency is more fortunate. You went with her to Venice and Vicenza. She told me that with you one saw things one would never see otherwise, things no one had ever thought of mentioning before, that you shewed her things she had never dreamed of, and that even in the well-known things she had been able to appreciate details which without you she might have passed by a dozen times without ever noticing. Obviously, she has been more highly favoured than we are to be.... You will take the big envelope from M. Swann’s photograph,” she said to the servant, “and you will hand it in, from me, this evening at half past ten at Mme. la Comtesse Molé’s.” Swann laughed. “I should like to know, all the same,” Mme. de Guermantes asked him, “how, ten months before the time, you can tell that a thing will be impossible.” “My dear Duchess, I will tell you if you insist upon it, but, first of all, you can see that I am very ill.” “Yes, my little Charles, I don’t think you look at all well. I’m not pleased with your colour, 392but I’m not asking you to come with me next week, I ask you to come in ten months. In ten months one has time to get oneself cured, you know.” At this point a footman came in to say that the carriage was at the door. “Come, Oriane, to horse,” said the Duke, already pawing the ground with impatience as though he were himself one of the horses that stood waiting outside. “Very well, give me in one word the reason why you can’t come to Italy,” the Duchess put it to Swann as she rose to say good-bye to us. “But, my dear friend, it’s because I shall then have been dead for several months. According to the doctors I consulted last winter, the thing I’ve got—which may, for that matter, carry me off at any moment—won’t in any case leave me more than three or four months to live, and even that is a generous estimate,” replied Swann with a smile, while the footman opened the glazed door of the hall to let the Duchess out. “What’s that you say?” cried the Duchess, stopping for a moment on her way to the carriage, and raising her fine eyes, their melancholy blue clouded by uncertainty. Placed for the first time in her life between two duties as incompatible as getting into her carriage to go out to dinner and shewing pity for a man who was about to die, she could find nothing in the code of conventions that indicated the right line to follow, and, not knowing which to choose, felt it better to make a show of not believing that the latter alternative need be seriously considered, so as to follow the first, which demanded of her at the moment less effort, and thought that the best way of settling the conflict would be to deny that any existed. “You’re joking,” she said to Swann. “It would be a joke in charming taste,” replied he ironically. “I don’t know why I 393am telling you this; I have never said a word to you before about my illness. But as you asked me, and as now I may die at any moment.... But whatever I do I mustn’t make you late; you’re dining out, remember,” he added, because he knew that for other people their own social obligations took precedence of the death of a friend, and could put himself in her place by dint of his instinctive politeness. But that of the Duchess enabled her also to perceive in a vague way that the dinner to which she was going must count for less to Swann than his own death. And so, while continuing on her way towards the carriage, she let her shoulders droop, saying: “Don’t worry about our dinner. It’s not of any importance!” But this put the Duke in a bad humour, who exclaimed: “Come, Oriane, don’t stop there chattering like that and exchanging your jeremiads with Swann; you know very well that Mme. de Saint-Euverte insists on sitting down to table at eight o’clock sharp. We must know what you propose to do; the horses have been waiting for a good five minutes. I beg your pardon, Charles,” he went on, turning to Swann, “but it’s ten minutes to eight already. Oriane is always late, and it will take us more than five minutes to get to old Saint-Euverte’s.”

Mme. de Guermantes advanced resolutely towards the carriage and uttered a last farewell to Swann. “You know, we can talk about that another time; I don’t believe a word you’ve been saying, but we must discuss it quietly. I expect they gave you a dreadful fright, come to luncheon, whatever day you like,” (with Mme. de Guermantes things always resolved themselves into luncheons), “you will let me know your day and time,” and, lifting her red skirt, she set her foot on the step. She was just 394getting into the carriage when, seeing this foot exposed, the Duke cried in a terrifying voice: “Oriane, what have you been thinking of, you wretch? You’ve kept on your black shoes! With a red dress! Go upstairs quick and put on red shoes, or rather,” he said to the footman, “tell the lady’s maid at once to bring down a pair of red shoes.” “But, my dear,” replied the Duchess gently, annoyed to see that Swann, who was leaving the house with me but had stood back to allow the carriage to pass out in front of us, could hear, “since we are late.” “No, no, we have plenty of time. It is only ten to; it won’t take us ten minutes to get to the Parc Monceau. And, after all, what would it matter? If we turned up at half past eight they’ld have to wait for us, but you can’t possibly go there in a red dress and black shoes. Besides, we shan’t be the last, I can tell you; the Sassenages are coming, and you know they never arrive before twenty to nine.” The Duchess went up to her room. “Well,” said M. de Guermantes to Swann and myself, “we poor, down-trodden husbands, people laugh at us, but we are of some use all the same. But for me, Oriane would have been going out to dinner in black shoes.” “It’s not unbecoming,” said Swann, “I noticed the black shoes and they didn’t offend me in the least.” “I don’t say you’re wrong,” replied the Duke, “but it looks better to have them to match the dress. Besides, you needn’t worry, she would no sooner have got there than she’ld have noticed them, and I should have been obliged to come home and fetch the others. I should have had my dinner at nine o’clock. Good-bye, my children,” he said, thrusting us gently from the door, “get away, before Oriane comes down again. It’s not that she doesn’t like seeing you both. On the contrary, she’s too 395fond of your company. If she finds you still here she will start talking again, she is tired out already, she’ll reach the dinner-table quite dead. Besides, I tell you frankly, I’m dying of hunger. I had a wretched luncheon this morning when I came from the train. There was the devil of a béarnaise sauce, I admit, but in spite of that I sha’nt be at all sorry, not at all sorry to sit down to dinner. Five minutes to eight! Oh, women, women! She’ll give us both indigestion before to-morrow. She is not nearly as strong as people think.” The Duke felt no compunction at speaking thus of his wife’s ailments and his own to a dying man, for the former interested him more, appeared to him more important. And so it was simply from good breeding and good fellowship that, after politely shewing us out, he cried “from off stage”, in a stentorian voice from the porch to Swann, who was already in the courtyard: “You, now, don’t let yourself be taken in by the doctors’ nonsense, damn them. They’re donkeys. You’re as strong as the Pont Neuf. You’ll live to bury us all!”

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BENNETT, ARNOLD The Old Wives’ Tale 184

BIERCE, AMBROSE In the Midst of Life 133

BOCCACCIO The Decameron 71

BRONTË, CHARLOTTE Jane Eyre 64

BRONTË, EMILY Wuthering Heights 106

BUCK, PEARL The Good Earth 2

BURTON, RICHARD The Arabian Nights 201

BUTLER, SAMUEL Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited 136

BUTLER, SAMUEL The Way of All Flesh 13

CABELL, JAMES BRANCH Jurgen 15

CALDWELL, ERSKINE God’s Little Acre 51

CANFIELD, DOROTHY The Deepening Stream 200

CARROLL, LEWIS Alice in Wonderland, etc. 79

CASANOVA, JACQUES Memoirs of Casanova 165

CELLINI, BENVENUTO Autobiography of Cellini 3

CERVANTES Don Quixote 174

CHAUCER The Canterbury Tales 161

CHAUCER Troilus and Cressida 126

CONFUCIUS The Wisdom of Confucius 7

CONRAD, JOSEPH Heart of Darkness (In Great Modern Short Stories 168)

CONRAD, JOSEPH Lord Jim 186

CONRAD, JOSEPH Victory 34

CORNEILLE and RACINE Six Plays of Corneille and Racine 194

CORVO, FREDERICK BARON A History of the Borgias 192

CUMMINGS, E. E. The Enormous Room 214

DANTE The Divine Comedy 208

DAUDET, ALPHONSE Sapho 85

396DEFOE, DANIEL Moll Flanders 122

DEWEY, JOHN Human Nature and Conduct 173

DICKENS, CHARLES A Tale of Two Cities 189

DICKENS, CHARLES David Copperfield 110

DICKENS, CHARLES Pickwick Papers 204

DINESEN, ISAK Seven Gothic Tales 54

DOS PASSOS, JOHN Three Soldiers 205

DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR Crime and Punishment 199

DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR The Brothers Karamazov 151

DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR The Possessed 55

DOUGLAS, NORMAN South Wind 5

DREISER, THEODORE Sister Carrie 8

DUMAS, ALEXANDRE Camille 69

DUMAS, ALEXANDRE The Three Musketeers 143

DU MAURIER, GEORGE Peter Ibbetson 207

EDMAN, IRWIN The Philosophy of Plato 181

EDMONDS, WALTER D. Rome Haul 191

ELLIS, HAVELOCK The Dance of Life 160

EMERSON, RALPH WALDO Essays and Other Writings 91

FAULKNER, WILLIAM Sanctuary 61

FEUCHTWANGER, LION Power 206

FIELDING, HENRY Joseph Andrews 117

FIELDING, HENRY Tom Jones 185

FINEMAN, IRVING Hear, Ye Sons 130

FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE Madame Bovary 28

FORESTER, C. S. The African Queen 102

FORSTER, E. M. A Passage to India 218

FRANCE, ANATOLE Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard 22

FRANCE, ANATOLE Penguin Island 210

FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN Autobiography, etc. 39

GALSWORTHY, JOHN The Apple Tree (In Great Modern Short Stories 168)

GAUTIER, THEOPHILE Mlle. De Maupin, One of Cleopatra’s Nights 53

GEORGE, HENRY Progress and Poverty 36

GIDE, ANDRÉ The Counterfeiters 187

GISSING, GEORGE New Grub Street 125

GISSING, GEORGE Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft 46

GLASGOW, ELLEN Barren Ground 25

GOETHE Faust 177

GOETHE The Sorrows of Werther (In Collected German Stories 108)

GOGOL, NIKOLAI Dead Souls 40

GRAVES, ROBERT I, Claudius 20

HAMMETT, DASHIELL The Maltese Falcon 45

HAMSUN, KNUT Growth of the Soil 12

HARDY, THOMAS Jude the Obscure 135

HARDY, THOMAS The Mayor of Casterbridge 17

HARDY, THOMAS The Return of the Native 121

HARDY, THOMAS Tess of the D’Urbervilles 72

397HART, LIDDELL The War in Outline 16

HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL The Scarlet Letter 93

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST A Farewell to Arms 19

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST The Sun Also Rises 170

HEMON, LOUIS Maria Chapdelaine 10

HOMER The Iliad 166

HOMER The Odyssey 167

HORACE The Complete Works of 141

HUDSON, W. H. Green Mansions 89

HUDSON, W. H. The Purple Land 24

HUGHES, RICHARD A High Wind in Jamaica 112

HUGO, VICTOR The Hunchback of Notre Dame 35

HUNEKER, JAMES G. Painted Veils 43

HUXLEY, ALDOUS Antic Hay 209

HUXLEY, ALDOUS Point Counter Point 180

IBSEN, HENRIK A Doll’s House, Ghosts, etc. 6

JAMES, HENRY The Portrait of a Lady 107

JAMES, HENRY The Turn of the Screw 169

JAMES, WILLIAM The Philosophy of William James 114

JAMES, WILLIAM The Varieties of Religious Experience 70

JEFFERS, ROBINSON Roan Stallion; Tamar and Other Poems 118

JOYCE, JAMES Dubliners 124

JOYCE, JAMES A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 145

KUPRIN, ALEXANDRE Yama 203

LARDNER, RING The Collected Short Stories of 211

LAWRENCE, D. H. The Rainbow 128

LAWRENCE, D. H. Sons and Lovers 109

LAWRENCE, D. H. Women in Love 68

LEWIS, SINCLAIR Arrowsmith 42

LEWISOHN, LUDWIG The Island Within 123

LONGFELLOW, HENRY W. Poems 56

LOUYS, PIERRE Aphrodite 77

LUDWIG, EMIL Napoleon 95

LUNDBERG, FERDINAND Imperial Hearst 81

MACHIAVELLI The Prince and The Discourses of Machiavelli 65

MALRAUX, ANDRÉ Man’s Fate 33

MANN, THOMAS Death in Venice (In Collected German Stories 108)

MANSFIELD, KATHERINE The Garden Party 129

MARQUAND, JOHN P. The Late George Apley 182

MARX, KARL Capital and Other Writings 202

MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET Of Human Bondage 176

MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET The Moon and Sixpence 27

MAUPASSANT, GUY DE Best Short Stories 98

McFEE, WILLIAM Casuals of the Sea 195

MELVILLE, HERMAN Moby Dick 119

MEREDITH, GEORGE Diana of the Crossways 14

MEREDITH, GEORGE The Ordeal of Richard Feverel 134

MEREJKOWSKI, DMITRI The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci 138

398MISCELLANEOUS An Anthology of American Negro Literature 163

An Anthology of Light Verse 48

Best Ghost Stories 73

Best Amer. Humorous Short Stories 87

Best Russian Short Stories, including Bunin’s The Gentleman from San Francisco 18

Eight Famous Elizabethan Plays 94

Five Great Modern Irish Plays 30

Four Famous Greek Plays 158

Fourteen Great Detective Stories 144

Great German Short Novels and Stories 108

Great Modern Short Stories 168

The Federalist 139

The Making of Man: An Outline of Anthropology 149

The Making of Society: An Outline of Sociology 183

The Short Bible 57

Outline of Abnormal Psychology 152

Outline of Psychoanalysis 66

The Sex Problem in Modern Society 198

MOLIERE Plays 78

MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER Human Being 74

MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER Parnassus on Wheels 190

NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH Thus Spake Zarathustra 9

ODETS, CLIFFORD Six Plays of 67

O’NEILL, EUGENE The Emperor Jones, Anna Christie and The Hairy Ape 146

O’NEILL, EUGENE The Long Voyage Home and Seven Plays of the Sea 111

PASCAL, BLAISE Pensées and The Provincial Letters 164

PATER, WALTER The Renaissance 86

PATER, WALTER Marius the Epicurean 90

PEARSON, EDMUND Studies in Murder 113

PEPYS, SAMUEL Samuel Pepys’ Diary 103

PETRONIUS ARBITER The Satyricon 156

PLATO The Republic 153

PLATO The Philosophy of Plato 181

POE, EDGAR ALLAN Best Tales 82

POLO, MARCO The Travels of Marco Polo 196

PORTER, KATHERINE ANNE Flowering Judas 88

PREVOST, ANTOINE Manon Lescaut 85

PROUST, MARCEL Cities of the Plain 220

PROUST, MARCEL The Captive 120

PROUST, MARCEL The Guermantes Way 213

PROUST, MARCEL Swann’s Way 59

PROUST, MARCEL Within a Budding Grove 172

RABELAIS Gargantua and Pantagruel 4

READE, CHARLES The Cloister and the Hearth 62

REED, JOHN Ten Days that Shook the World 215

RENAN, ERNEST The Life of Jesus 140

ROSTAND, EDMOND Cyrano de Bergerac 154

RUSSELL, BERTRAND Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell 137

SAROYAN, WILLIAM The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze 92

SCHOPENHAUER The Philosophy of Schopenhauer 52

SCHREINER, OLIVE The Story of an African Farm 132

SHEEAN, VINCENT Personal History 32

SMOLLETT, TOBIAS Humphry Clinker 159

SPINOZA The Philosophy of Spinoza 60

STEINBECK, JOHN In Dubious Battle 115

STEINBECK, JOHN The Grapes of Wrath 148

STEINBECK, JOHN Tortilla Flat 216

STEINBECK, JOHN Of Mice and Men 29

STENDHAL The Charterhouse of Parma 150

STENDHAL The Red and the Black 157

STERNE, LAURENCE Tristram Shandy 147

STOKER, BRAM Dracula 31

STONE, IRVING Lust for Life 11

STRACHEY, LYTTON Eminent Victorians 212

SUDERMANN, HERMANN The Song of Songs 162

SUETONIUS Lives of the Twelve Caesars 188

SWIFT, JONATHAN Gulliver’s Travels, A Tale of a Tub, The Battle of the Books 100

SWINBURNE, CHARLES Poems 23

SYMONDS, JOHN A. The Life of Michelangelo 49

TCHEKOV, ANTON Short Stories 50

TCHEKOV, ANTON Sea Gull, Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, etc. 171

THACKERAY, WILLIAM Henry Esmond 80

THACKERAY, WILLIAM Vanity Fair 131

THOMPSON, FRANCIS Complete Poems 38

THOREAU, HENRY DAVID Walden and Other Writings 155

THUCYDIDES The Complete Writings of 58

TOLSTOY, LEO Anna Karenina 37

TOMLINSON, H. M. The Sea and the Jungle 99

TROLLOPE, ANTHONY Barchester Towers and The Warden 41

TURGENEV, IVAN Fathers and Sons 21

VAN LOON, HENDRIK W. Ancient Man 105

VEBLEN, THORSTEIN The Theory of the Leisure Class 63

VIRGIL’S WORKS Including The Aeneid, Eclogues, and Georgics 75

VOLTAIRE Candide 47

WALPOLE, HUGH Fortitude 178

WALTON, IZAAK The Compleat Angler 26

WEBB, MARY Precious Bane 219

WELLS, H. G. Tono Bungay 197

WHITMAN, WALT Leaves of Grass 97

WILDE, OSCAR Dorian Gray, De Profundis 1

WILDE, OSCAR The Plays of Oscar Wilde 83

WILDE, OSCAR Poems and Fairy Tales 84

WOOLF, VIRGINIA Mrs. Dalloway 96

WOOLF, VIRGINIA To the Lighthouse 217

YEATS, W. B. Irish Fairy and Folk Tales 44

YOUNG, G. F. The Medici 179

ZOLA, EMILE Nana 142

ZWEIG, STEFAN Amok (In Collected German Stories 108)

MODERN LIBRARY GIANTS

A series of full-sized library editions of books that formerly were available only in cumbersome and expensive sets.

THE TEXTS OF THE GIANTS ARE GUARANTEED

TO BE COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED

Many are illustrated and some of them are over 1200 pages long.

G1. TOLSTOY, LEO. War and Peace.

G2. BOSWELL, JAMES. Life of Samuel Johnson.

G3. HUGO, VICTOR. Les Miserables.

G4. THE COMPLETE POEMS OF KEATS AND SHELLEY.

G5. PLUTARCH’S LIVES (The Dryden Translation).

G6. } GIBBON, EDWARD. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Complete in two volumes).

G7.

G8. THE COMPLETE NOVELS OF JANE AUSTEN.

G9. YOUNG, G. F. The Medici (Illustrated).

G10. TWELVE FAMOUS RESTORATION PLAYS (1660-1820) (Congreve, Wycherley, Gay, Goldsmith, Sheridan, etc.)

G11. THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE (The Florio Translation).

G12. THE MOST POPULAR NOVELS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT (Quentin Durward, Ivanhoe, and Kenilworth).

G13. CARLYLE, THOMAS. The French Revolution (Illustrated).

G14. BULFINCH’S MYTHOLOGY (Illustrated).

G15. CERVANTES. Don Quixote (Illustrated).

G16. WOLFE, THOMAS. Look Homeward, Angel.

G17. THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF ROBERT BROWNING.

G18. ELEVEN PLAYS OF HENRIK IBSEN.

G19. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF HOMER.

G20. } SYMONDS, JOHN ADDINGTON. Renaissance in Italy. (Complete in two volumes).

G21.

G22. STRACHEY, JOHN. The Coming Struggle for Power.

G23. TOLSTOY, LEO. Anna Karenina.

G24. LAMB, CHARLES. The Complete Works and Letters of Charles Lamb.

G25. THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF GILBERT AND SULLIVAN.

G26. MARX, KARL. Capital.

G27. DARWIN, CHARLES. The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.

G28. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF LEWIS CARROLL.

G29. PRESCOTT, WILLIAM H. The Conquest of Mexico and The Conquest of Peru.

G30. MYERS, GUSTAVUS. History of the Great American Fortunes.

G31. WERFEL, FRANZ. The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.

G32. SMITH, ADAM. The Wealth of Nations.

G33. COLLINS, WILKIE. The Moonstone and The Woman in White.

G34. NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH. The Philosophy of Nietzsche.

G35. BURY, J. B. A History of Greece.

G36. DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR. The Brothers Karamazov.

G37. THE COMPLETE NOVELS AND SELECTED TALES OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

G38. ROLLAND, ROMAIN. Jean-Christophe.

G39. THE BASIC WRITINGS OF SIGMUND FREUD.

G40. THE COMPLETE TALES AND POEMS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE.

G41. FARRELL, JAMES T. Studs Lonigan.

G42. THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF TENNYSON.

G43. DEWEY, JOHN. Intelligence in the Modern World: John Dewey’s Philosophy.

G44. DOS PASSOS, JOHN. U. S. A.

G45. LEWISOHN, LUDWIG. The Story of American Literature.

G46. A NEW ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN POETRY.

G47. THE ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS FROM BACON TO MILL.

G48. THE METROPOLITAN OPERA GUIDE.

G49. TWAIN, MARK. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

G50. WHITMAN, WALT. Leaves of Grass.

G51. THE BEST-KNOWN NOVELS OF GEORGE ELIOT.

G51. JOYCE, JAMES. Ulysses.

G53. SUE, EUGENE. The Wandering Jew.

G54. FIELDING, HENRY. Tom Jones.

G55. O’NEILL, EUGENE. Nine Plays by

G56. STERNE, LAURENCE. Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey

G57. BROOKS, VAN WYCK. The Flowering of New England.

G58. MALRAUX, ANDRÉ. Man’s Hope.

Transcriber’s Note

You will note in the Table of Contents, that the pagination of the original text begins with ‘1’ for each of the two Parts. Page references in these notes below refers to each Part by prefixing ‘1.’ or ‘2.’.

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the part, page and line in the original.

1.44.21 Really, Madame d’Ambresac[,/.] Replaced.

1.102.22 from the window[ of] a country house Added.

1.135.29 by the sumpt[u]ous curtains Inserted.

1.155.32 would never venture[.] Restored.

1.157.31 the thought of Mme. de Guermantes[.] Added.

1.185.21 if-I[-]tell-you-a-thing Inserted.

1.194.25 were barely distinguish[i/a]ble Replaced.

1.209.15 discern[a/i]ble at most Replaced.

1.210.19 she’ll perhaps [h/b]e afraid Replaced.

1.213.17 a woman desir[i]ous of earning Removed.

1.290.28 [“]Whenever there’s a famous man Added.

1.311.7 [“]After all, one never does know Added.

1.313.16 to explain it to him.[”] Added.

1.321.8 [“]if they’re all like Gilbert Added.

1.351.7 [“]But I’ve found out Removed.

1.358.27 [‘/“]Damn it, these fellows will see Replaced.

1.381.32 by exposing his strat[e/a]gem. Replaced.

1.393.7 that intermittent familiar[it]y Inserted.

396.22 his [“/‘]haggart[”/’]) of a mother Replaced.

1.418.21 rashes, asthma, ep[l]ilepsy, a terror Inserted.

1.425.24 I said to him: ‘Y[’] mustn’t let go Added.

2.18.4 with a hot needle.[”] Added.

2.40.6 which he had[ had] left ajar. Removed.

2.70.28 the temptation to kiss you.[”] Added.

2.82.24 has been tra[n]smitted Inserted.

2.138.4 plent[l]y plenty of foreigners Inserted.

2.220.14 on the afternoon of[ of] “Teaser Augustus”. Removed.

2.250.7 with the s[ta/at]isfaction which he derived Transposed.

2.174.20 r[yh/hy]thm of precise and noble movements Transposed.

2.290.10 all go quite smooth[l]y. Inserted.

2.282.17 of their conversation, [oc/co]mments which Transposed.

2.331.5 Feuilles d’A[n/u]tomne Inverted.

2.348.12 regard[n/l]ess of any want Replaced.