family, excessively rich
and wholly undistinguished, with which she had gradually and of her own
accord severed all connection) to a young woman almost of a 'certain
class,' a Mme. de Crecy, whom Mme. Verdurin called by her Christian
name, Odette, and pronounced a 'love,' and to the pianist's aunt, who
looked as though she had, at one period, 'answered the bell': ladies
quite ignorant of the world, who in their social simplicity were so
easily led to believe that the Princesse de Sagan and the Duchesse
de Guermantes were obliged to pay large sums of money to other poor
wretches, in order to have anyone at their dinner-parties, that if
somebody had offered to procure them an invitation to the house of
either of those great dames, the old doorkeeper and the woman of 'easy
virtue' would have contemptuously declined.

The Verdurins never invited you to dinner; you had your 'place laid'
there. There was never any programme for the evening's entertainment.
The young pianist would play, but only if he felt inclined, for no one
was forced to do anything, and, as M. Verdurin used to say: "We're all
friends here. Liberty Hall, you know!"

If the pianist suggested playing the Ride of the Valkyries, or the
Prelude to Tristan, Mme. Verdurin would protest, not that the music was
displeasing to her, but, on the contrary, that it made too violent an
impression. "Then you want me to have one of my headaches? You know
quite well, it's the same every time he plays that. I know what I'm
in for. Tomorrow, when I want to get up--nothing doing!" If he was not
going to play they talked, and one of the friends--usually the painter
who was in favour there that year--would "spin," as M. Verdurin put
it, "a damned funny yarn that made 'em all split with laughter," and
especially Mme. Verdurin, for whom--so strong was her habit of taking
literally the figurative accounts of her emotions--Dr. Cottard, who was
then just starting in general practice, would "really have to come one
day and set her jaw, which she had dislocated with laughing too much."

Evening dress was barred, because you were all 'good pals,' and didn't
want to look like the 'boring people' who were to be avoided like the
plague, and only asked to the big evenings, which were given as seldom
as possible, and then only if it would amuse the painter or make the
musician better known. The rest of the time you were quite happy playing
charades and having supper in fancy dress, and ther