Verdurin, to whom indeed Ski had once repeated the remark, but as his own invention. “It’s unfortunate that when once in a way you say something quite amusing and make it intelligible, it is not your own.” “I’m sorry about it,” Mme. Verdurin went on, “because he was really gifted, he has wasted a charming temperament for painting. Ah! if he had stayed with us! Why, he would have become the greatest landscape painter of our day. And it is a woman that has dragged him down so low! Not that that surprises me, for he was a pleasant enough man, but common. At bottom, he was a mediocrity. I may tell you that I felt it at once. Really, he never interested me. I was very fond of him, that was all. For one thing, he was so dirty. Tell me, do you, now, really like people who never wash?” “What is this charmingly coloured thing that we are eating?” asked Ski. “It is called strawberry mousse,” said Mme. Verdurin. “But it is ex‑qui‑site. You ought to open bottles of Château-Margaux, Château-Lafite, port wine.” “I can’t tell you how he amuses me, he never drinks anything but water,” said