In Search of Lost Time

by Marcel Proust

and to ask hypocritically in Mme. de Cambremer’s hearing who could have been so treacherous as to send the notice, upon which the Marquise, every inch the lady bountiful, said: “I can understand your being annoyed, but I must say I am only too delighted that people should know I was at your party.” On the card that was brought me, Mme. de Cambremer had scribbled the message that she was giving an afternoon party ‘the day after tomorrow.’ To be sure, as recently as the day before yesterday, tired as I was of the social round, it would have been a real pleasure to me to taste it, transplanted amid those gardens in which there grew in the open air, thanks to the exposure of Féterne, fig trees, palms, rose bushes extending down to a sea as blue and calm often as the Mediterranean, upon which the host’s little yacht sped across, before the party began, to fetch from the places on the other side of the bay the most important guests, served, with its awnings spread to shut out the sun, after the party had assembled, as an open air refreshment room, and set sail again in the evening to take back those whom it had brought.