Swann's Way

meet well-known people at dinner. But, I say, you ask us to very select
parties here. No dull evenings in this house, I'm sure."

"Well, you know what it is really," said Mme. Verdurin modestly.
"They feel safe here. They can talk about whatever they like, and the
conversation goes off like fireworks. Now Brichot, this evening, is
nothing. I've seen him, don't you know, when he's been with me, simply
dazzling; you'd want to go on your knees to him. Well, with anyone else
he's not the same man, he's not in the least witty, you have to drag the
words out of him, he's even boring."

"That's strange," remarked Forcheville with fitting astonishment.

A sort of wit like Brichot's would have been regarded as out-and-out
stupidity by the people among whom Swann had spent his early life,
for all that it is quite compatible with real intelligence. And the
intelligence of the Professor's vigorous and well-nourished brain might
easily have been envied by many of the people in society who seemed
witty enough to Swann. But these last had so thoroughly inculcated into
him their likes and dislikes, at least in everything that pertained
to their ordinary social existence, including that annex to social