"My precious Charles? Ah, he's coming at last; I was beginning to think he
didn't want to see me!"
Swann was extremely fond of the Princesse des Laumes, and the sight of her
recalled to him Guermantes, a property close to Combray, and all that
country which he so dearly loved and had ceased to visit, so as not to be
separated from Odette. Slipping into the manner, half-artistic,
half-amorous--with which he could always manage to amuse the Princess--a
manner which came to him quite naturally whenever he dipped for a moment
into the old social atmosphere, and wishing also to express in words, for
his own satisfaction, the longing that he felt for the country:
"Ah!" he exclaimed, or rather intoned, in such a way as to be audible at
once to Mme. de Saint-Euverte, to whom he spoke, and to Mme. des Laumes,
for whom he was speaking, "Behold our charming Princess! See, she has come
up on purpose from Guermantes to hear Saint Francis preach to the birds,
and has only just had time, like a dear little tit-mouse, to go and pick a
few little hips and haws and put them in her hair; there are even some
drops of dew upon them still, a little of the hoar-frost which must be
making the Duchess, down there, shiver.
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