The very next day, her letter came. She wrote that the Verdurins and their
friends had expressed a desire to be present at these performances of
Wagner, and that, if he would be so good as to send her the money, she
would be able at last, after going so often to their house, to have the
pleasure of entertaining the Verdurins in hers. Of him she said not a
word; it was to be taken for granted that their presence at Bayreuth would
be a bar to his.
Then that annihilating answer, every word of which he had carefully
rehearsed overnight, without venturing to hope that it could ever be used,
he had the satisfaction of having it conveyed to her. Alas! he felt only
too certain that with the money which she had, or could easily procure,
she would be able, all the same, to take a house at Bayreuth, since she
wished to do so, she who was incapable of distinguishing between Bach and
Clapisson. Let her take it, then; she would have to live in it more
frugally, that was all. No means (as there would have been if he had
replied by sending her several thousand-franc notes) of organising, each
evening, in her hired castle, those exquisite little suppers, after which
she might perhaps be seized by the whim (which, it was possible, had
never yet seized her) of falling into the arms of Forcheville.
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