conceive what pleasure their brother-in-law could find in talking about
such trifles. They were ladies of lofty ambition, who for that reason were
incapable of taking the least interest in what might be called the
'pinchbeck' things of life, even when they had an historic value, or,
generally speaking, in anything that was not directly associated with some
object aesthetically precious. So complete was their negation of interest
in anything which seemed directly or indirectly a part of our everyday
life that their sense of hearing--which had gradually come to understand
its own futility when the tone of the conversation, at the dinner-table,
became frivolous or merely mundane, without the two old ladies' being able
to guide it back to the topic dear to themselves--would leave its
receptive channels unemployed, so effectively that they were actually
becoming atrophied. So that if my grandfather wished to attract the
attention of the two sisters, he would have to make use of some such alarm
signals as mad-doctors adopt in dealing with their distracted patients; as
by beating several times on a glass with the blade of a knife, fixing them
at the same time with a sharp word and a compelling glance, violent
methods which the said doctors are apt to bring with them into their
everyday life among the sane, either from force of professional habit or
because they think the whole world a trifle mad.

Their interest grew, however, when, the day before Swann was to dine with
us, and when he had made them a special present of a case of Asti, my
great-aunt, who had in her hand a copy of the _Figaro_ in which to the
name of a picture then on view in a Corot exhibition were added the words,
"from the collection of M. Charles Swann," asked: "Did you see that Swann
is 'mentioned' in the _Figaro_?"

"But I have always told you," said my grandmother, "that he had plenty of
taste."