hich meant: "Yes, you old goat, I know
that you've got a tongue like a viper, that you can't keep quiet for a
moment. But do you suppose that I care what you say?" Coquelin passed,
talking, in a group of listening friends, and with a sweeping wave of
his hand bade a theatrical good day to the people in the carriages. But
I thought only of Mme. Swann, and pretended to have not yet seen her,
for I knew that, when she reached the pigeon-shooting ground, she would
tell her coachman to 'break away' and to stop the carriage, so that she
might come back on foot. And on days when I felt that I had the courage
to pass close by her I would drag Francoise off in that direction; until
the moment came when I saw Mme. Swann, letting trail behind her the long
train of her lilac skirt, dressed, as the populace imagine queens to be
dressed, in rich attire such as no other woman might wear, lowering
her eyes now and then to study the handle of her parasol, paying scant
attention to the passers-by, as though the important thing for her, her
one object in being there, was to take exercise, without thinking that
she was seen, and that every head was turned towards her. Sometimes,
however, when she had looked back to call her dog to her, she would
cast, almost imperceptibly, a sweeping glance round about.

Those even who did not know her were warned by something exceptional,
something beyond the normal in her--or perhaps by a telepathic
suggestion such as would move an ignorant audience to a frenzy of
applause when Berma was 'sublime'--that she must be some one well-known.
They would ask one another, "Who is she?", or sometimes would
interrogate a passing stranger, or would make a mental note of how she
was dressed so as to fix her identity, later, in the mind of a friend
better informed than themselves, who would at once enlighten them.
Another pair, half-stopping in their walk, would exchange:

"You know who that is? Mme. Swann! That conveys nothing to you? Odette
de Crecy, then?"

"Odette de Crecy! Why, I thought as much. Those great, sad eyes... But I
say, you know, she can't be as young as she was once, eh? I remember, I
had her on the day that MacMahon went."

"I shouldn't remind her of it, if I were you. She is now Mme. Swann, the
wife of a gentleman in the Jockey Club, a friend of the Prince of Wales.
Apart from that, though, she is wonderful still."

"Oh, but you ought to have known her then; Gad, she was lovely!
She lived in a