100 MARCEL PROUSTgraciously: "You may speak now, Monsieur Labiche." But the
unhappy dramatist only mumbled: "I just wanted to ask for
another helping of peas."
Mme Aubemon's salon was remarkable, like Mme Verdurin's,
for the absence of beautiful women. "I provide conversation,"
she would say, "not love"; or, "Women are a subject men are too
fond of getting on top of." But she was thought once to have
been not averse to love in its time and place, and had been heard
to announce: "I have a glorious body." To attend one's first dinner
in the Rue d' Astorg was like sitting for an examination. After-
wards the result would be proclaimed: "Monsieur So-and-so
dined very well," or "Monsieur So-and-so didn't dine at all. well,
he talked to the lady next to him." Proust, however, dined
exceedingly well, and Mme Aubemonwould say: "Marcel's
epigrams are definitiye." Now and then, like Mme Verdurin, she
would hold a public execution of some offender, which would end
in an outburst of tears, sometimes the victim's, sometimes the
executioner's; for Mme Aubemon's rages were genuine, not cold-
blooded like Mme Verdurin's. But she was not vindictive for long,
and a few months later a whole series of criminals would be
pardoned and reappear at what she called 'a dinner of forgiveness'.
Silence, and being a bore, were the only unforgivable sins: after
a series of boring visitors, she declared: "I've been outraged nine
times this morning." But with her as with Mme Arman the word
'bore' had its ordinary meaning, and was not a euphemism for a
person in high society who could not be lured to her salon. The
Faubourg never appeared there, and there is no reason to believe
that she ever missed it. Unlike Mme Verdurin, again, she did not
pretend to be fond of music; but her amateur theatricals, which in
A la Recherche are transferred to Mme de Villeparisis, were
famous, and it is to her credit that the first performances ofIbsen's
A Doll's House and John Gabriel Borkman took place in her
drawing-room. It was at this time that a visitor found her en-
grossed in a volume ofIbsen: "Don't disturb me! I'm acquiring
a Norwegian soul!"
In some points of detail, it is clear, Mme Aubemon differed
from Mme Verdurin: she was unmusical, non-political, and in the
social sense unsnobbish. She was capable, as Mme Verdurin was
not, of a kind of wit; though her witticisms, it will be noticed, are
remarkable chiefly for their unconscious absurdity, for she could