de Guermantes asked him, “how, ten months before the time, you can tell that a thing will be impossible.” “My dear Duchess, I will tell you if you insist upon it, but, first of all, you can see that I am very ill.” “Yes, my little Charles, I don’t think you look at all well. I’m not pleased with your colour, but I’m not asking you to come with me next week, I ask you to come in ten months. In ten months one has time to get oneself cured, you know.” At this point a footman came in to say that the carriage was at the door. “Come, Oriane, to horse,” said the Duke, already pawing the ground with impatience as though he were himself one of the horses that stood waiting outside. “Very well, give me in one word the reason why you can’t come to Italy,” the Duchess put it to Swann as she rose to say goodbye to us. “But, my dear friend, it’s because I shall then have been dead for several months. According to the doctors I consulted last winter, the thing I’ve got⁠—which may, for that matter, carry me off at any moment⁠—won’t in any case leave me more than three or four months to live, and even that is a generous estimate,” replied Swann with a smile, while the footman opened the glazed door of the hall to let the Duchess out.