“You aren’t going to Mme. de Sagan’s ball this evening?” M. de Norpois asked Mme. de Villeparisis, to cut short his conversation with Bloch. My friend had not failed to interest the Ambassador, who told us afterwards, not without a quaint simplicity, thinking no doubt of the traces that survived in Bloch’s speech of the neo-Homeric manner which he had on the whole outgrown: “He is rather amusing, with that way of speaking, a trifle old fashioned, a trifle solemn. You expect him to come out with ‘The Learned Sisters’, like Lamartine or Jean-Baptiste Rousseau. It has become quite uncommon in the youth of the present day, as it was indeed in the generation before them. We ourselves were inclined to be romantic.” But however exceptional his companion may have seemed to him, M. de Norpois decided that the conversation had lasted long enough.
“No, sir, I don’t go to balls any more,” she replied with a charming grandmotherly smile. “You’re going, all of you, I suppose? You’re the right age for that sort of thing,” she added, embracing in a comprehensive glance M. de Châtellerault, his friend and Bloch. “Still, I was asked,” she went on, pretending, just for fun, to be flattered by the distinction. “In fact, they came specially to ask me.” (“They” being the Princesse de Sagan.)
“I haven’t had a card,” said Bloch, thinking that Mme. de Villeparisis would at once offer to procure him one, and that Mme. de Sagan would be glad to see at her ball the friend of a woman whom she had called in person to invite.
The Marquise made no reply, and Bloch did not press the point, for he had another, more serious matter to discuss with her, and, with that in view, had already asked her whether he might call again in a couple of days. Having heard the two young men say that they had both just resigned from the Rue Royale Club, which was letting in every Tom, Dick and Harry, he wished to ask Mme. de Villeparisis to arrange for his election there.
“Aren’t they rather bad form, rather stuck-up snobs, these Sagans?” he inquired in a tone of sarcasm.
“Not at all, they’re the best we can do for you in that line,” M. d’Argencourt, who adopted all the catch-words of Parisian society, assured him.
“Then,” said Bloch, still half in irony, “I suppose it’s one of the solemnities, the great social fixtures of the season.”
Mme. de Villeparisis turned merrily to Mme. de Guermantes.
“Tell us, is it a great social solemnity, Mme. de Sagan’s ball?”
“It’s no good asking me,” answered the Duchess, “I have never yet succeeded in finding out what a social solemnity is. Besides, society isn’t my strong point.”