M. de Charlus,” she went on, “is that one can feel that he has the gift. I may tell you that I attach little importance to knowledge. Things that can be learned do not interest me.” This speech was not incompatible with Mme. de Cambremer’s own distinction which was, in the fullest sense, imitated and acquired. But it so happened that one of the things which one had to know at that moment was that knowledge is nothing, and is not worth a straw when compared with originality. Mme. de Cambremer had learned, with everything else, that one ought not to learn anything. “That is why,” she explained to me, “Brichot, who has an interesting side to him, for I am not one to despise a certain spicy erudition, interests me far less.” But Brichot, at that moment, was occupied with one thing only; hearing people talk about music, he trembled lest the subject should remind Mme. Verdurin of the death of Dechambre. He decided to say something that would avert that harrowing memory. M.