"
The pianist, who was 'down' to play two pieces by Chopin, after finishing
the Prelude had at once attacked a Polonaise. But once Mme. de Gallardon
had informed her cousin that Swann was in the room, Chopin himself might
have risen from the grave and played all his works in turn without Mme.
des Laumes's paying him the slightest attention. She belonged to that one
of the two divisions of the human race in which the untiring curiosity
which the other half feels about the people whom it does not know is
replaced by an unfailing interest in the people whom it does. As with many
women of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the presence, in any room in which
she might find herself, of another member of her set, even although she
had nothing in particular to say to him, would occupy her mind to the
exclusion of every other consideration. From that moment, in the hope that
Swann would catch sight of her, the Princess could do nothing but (like a
tame white mouse when a lump of sugar is put down before its nose and then
taken away) turn her face, in which were crowded a thousand signs of
intimate connivance, none of them with the least relevance to the
sentiment underlying Chopin's music, in the direction where Swann was,
and, if he moved, divert accordingly the course of her magnetic smile.
Pages:
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652