.. Pretend
to be talking, so that the poor old Berenice sha'n't come and invite me to
dinner. Anyhow, I'm going. Listen, my dearest Charles, now that I have
seen you, once in a blue moon, won't you let me carry you off and take you
to the Princesse de Parme's, who would be so pleased to see you (you
know), and Basin too, for that matter; he's meeting me there. If one
didn't get news of you, sometimes, from Meme... Remember, I never see you
at all now!"
Swann declined. Having told M. de Charlus that, on leaving Mme. de
Saint-Euverte's, he would go straight home, he did not care to run the
risk, by going on now to the Princesse de Parme's, of missing a message
which he had, all the time, been hoping to see brought in to him by one of
the footmen, during the party, and which he was perhaps going to find left
with his own porter, at home.
"Poor Swann," said Mme. des Laumes that night to her husband; "he is
always charming, but he does look so dreadfully unhappy. You will see for
yourself, for he has promised to dine with us one of these days. I do feel
that it's really absurd that a man of his intelligence should let himself
be made to suffer by a creature of that kind, who isn't even interesting,
for they tell me, she's an absolute idiot!" she concluded with the wisdom
invariably shewn by people who, not being in love themselves, feel that a
clever man ought to be unhappy only about such persons as are worth his
while; which is rather like being astonished that anyone should condescend
to die of cholera at the bidding of so insignificant a creature as the
common bacillus.
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