112 MARCEL PROUST
rest; and all stayed until she turned them out at four, sitting each in
his own chair in a circle round the countess. She sat bolt upright,
smoking endless cigarettes of coarse' cap oral' tobacco through an
amber holder, uttering the witticisms of which one would like to
have more and better specimens, since they helped her to become
the Duchesse de Guermantes. The clubmen were 'as jealous as
tomcats', said her friend Barbara Lister, of any younger recruit
to their number: "Myoid men growl when they smell fresh meat,"
declared the countess. Every New Year's Day they subscribed to
add another string to her pearls, whose festoons grew ever more
difficult to count as time went by: "I can number my friends and
my years on them," she said. She, too, was jealous, and on first
meeting the American heiress who had robbed her of a favourite
clubman (the Marquis de Breteuil, who married a Miss Garner)
she uttered the simple and deadly words: "Thank you for sparing
me the sight of Henri's old age."
Comtesse Laure de Chevigne, although she differed from the
Duchesse de Guerrnantes in being neither wealthy nor of parti-
cularly exalted rank, was regarded as one of the most distin-
guished ladies in Parisian society. She could hardly he said to
have a salon, nor could it he denied that her company was
'mixed'; but she was felt to be so pre-eminently desirable either
as guest or hostess, that wherever she chose to be was exclusive,
and whatever company she chose to invite was fashionable. The
Duchesse de Guermantes was descended from Genevieve de
Brabant; but Mme de Chevigne, though her family belonged only
to the provincial nobility, was of almost equally legendary birth.
She was a Sade, and among her ancestors were her namesake
Laura, to whom Petrarch wrote his sonnets, and the terrible
Marquis de Sade of whom, rather creditably, she was equally
proud. Her head displayed the fascinating ornithological qualities
which Proust transferred to the Duchesse: her neck was long and
birdlike, her nose was beaked, and her wide thin mouth, with its
subtle pOinted smile, was birdlike too. She had azure eyes and
golden hair, worn high at the nape of the neck and with ringlets
on the forehead. She wore the two kinds of clothing characteristic
of the Duchesse: in her early years she favoured white, spangled,
plumage-like satin and muslin, but later she discovered that dark
grey tailored costumes, created by Creed, which she was the first
to launch at Longchamp races, were more elegant still. Her voice