As the critical faculty, on the universal application of which he prided
himself, was, in reality, completely lacking, that refinement of good
breeding which consists in assuring some one whom you are obliging in any
way, without expecting to be believed, that it is really yourself that is
obliged to him, was wasted on Cottard, who took everything that he heard
in its literal sense. However blind she may have been to his faults, Mme.
Verdurin was genuinely annoyed, though she still continued to regard him
as brilliantly clever, when, after she had invited him to see and hear
Sarah Bernhardt from a stage box, and had said politely: "It is very good
of you to have come, Doctor, especially as I'm sure you must often have
heard Sarah Bernhardt; and besides, I'm afraid we're rather too near the
stage," the Doctor, who had come into the box with a smile which waited
before settling upon or vanishing from his face until some one in
authority should enlighten him as to the merits of the spectacle, replied:
"To be sure, we are far too near the stage, and one is getting sick of
Sarah Bernhardt. But you expressed a wish that I should come.
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