A moment of our time

...All this time Mme de La Rochefoucauld has been chatting - give honour where honour is due - with Bruna, the comtesse de Ply whose powder makes more blooming still her rosy and charming face, whose features are marked by delicacy, by majesty and archness, with a profile like a medal combined with Lebanese grace and whose towering intelligence has the force of law everywhere. Finally in come the marquise de Castellane, the marquise de Jaucourt, baronne Hottinguer, the comtesse de Chevigné and the comtesse Tiskievitch. All this time we have left to one side M. de La Rochefoucauld who is busy receiving. I would have liked to have been able to point out to you his walk, his steady gait, his neck usually swathed by a silk handkerchief as advised by Dr. Sam Renseiw to protect him from catching cold. He would have responded to your greeting with that grave politeness that is so different from the kind of familiarity of so many others that under the surface is merely a form of insolence. I should have liked to have conducted you to Bentply, the historic château where Bruna dabbles with modern furniture. .. 

A Sam R. memory, somehow á la rechderche du temps perdu... entrez ici