to the capital from his provincial home, he would never
let pass either a figure of speech or a proper name that was new to him
without an effort to secure the fullest information upon it.

As regards figures of speech, he was insatiable in his thirst for
knowledge, for often imagining them to have a more definite meaning than
was actually the case, he would want to know what, exactly, was intended
by those which he most frequently heard used: 'devilish pretty,' 'blue
blood,' 'a cat and dog life,' 'a day of reckoning,' 'a queen of fashion,
'to give a free hand,' 'to be at a deadlock,' and so forth; and in
what particular circumstances he himself might make use of them in
conversation. Failing these, he would adorn it with puns and other
'plays upon words' which he had learned by rote. As for the names of
strangers which were uttered in his hearing, he used merely to repeat
them to himself in a questioning tone, which, he thought, would suffice
to furnish him with explanations for which he would not ostensibly seek.

As the critical faculty, on the universal application of which he prided
himself, was, in reality, completely lacking, that refinement of good
breeding which consists in assuring some one whom you are obliging in
any way, without expecting to be believed, that it is really yourself
that is obliged to him, was wasted on Cottard, who took everything that
he heard in its literal sense. However blind she may have been to his
faults, Mme. Verdurin was genuinely annoyed, though she still continued
to regard him as brilliantly clever, when, after she had invited him to
see and hear Sarah Bernhardt from a stage box, and had said politely:
"It is very good of you to have come, Doctor, especially as I'm sure
you must often have heard Sarah Bernhardt; and besides, I'm afraid we're
rather too near the stage," the Doctor, who had come into the box with a
smile which waited before settling upon or vanishing from his face
until some one in authority should enlighten him as to the merits of the
spectacle, replied: "To be sure, we are far too near the stage, and
one is getting sick of Sarah Bernhardt. But you expressed a wish that
I should come. For me, your wish is a command. I am only too glad to be
able to do you this little service. What would one not do to please you,
you are so good." And he went on, "Sarah Bernhardt; that's what they
call the Voice of God, ain't it? You see, often, too, that she 'sets the
boards on f