Swann's Way

interested in them all. Now my uncle knew many of them personally, and
also ladies of another class, not clearly distinguished from actresses
in my mind. He used to entertain them at his house. And if we went to
see him on certain days only, that was because on the other days ladies
might come whom his family could not very well have met. So we at least
thought; as for my uncle, his fatal readiness to pay pretty widows (who
had perhaps never been married) and countesses (whose high-sounding
titles were probably no more than _noms de guerre_) the compliment of
presenting them to my grandmother or even of presenting to them some
of our family jewels, had already embroiled him more than once with
my grandfather. Often, if the name of some actress were mentioned in
conversation, I would hear my father say, with a smile, to my mother:
"One of your uncle's friends," and I would think of the weary novitiate
through which, perhaps for years on end, a grown man, even a man of real
importance, might have to pass, waiting on the doorstep of some such
lady, while she refused to answer his letters and made her hall-porter
drive him away; and imagine that my uncle was able to dispense a little