The Guermantes are delayed

The last page of "The Guermantes Way":

‘I should like to know, all the same,’ Mme 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 at 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 good-bye 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.
‘What’s that you say?’ cried the Duchess, stopping for a moment on her way to the carriage, and raising her fine eyes, their melancholy blue clouded by uncertainty. Placed for the first time in her life between two duties as incompatible as getting into her carriage to go out to dinner and showing pity for a man who was about to die, she could find nothing in the code of conventions that indicated the right line to follow, and, not knowing which to choose, felt it better to make a show of not believing that the latter alternative need be seriously considered, so as to follow the first, which demanded of her at the moment less effort, and thought that the best way of settling the conflict would be to deny that any existed. ‘You’re joking,’ she said to Swann.
‘It would be a joke in charming taste,’ replied he ironically. ‘I don’t know why I am telling you this; I have never said a word to you before about my illness. But as you asked me, and as now I may die at any moment… But whatever I do I mustn’t make you late; you’re dining out, remember,’ he added, because he knew that for other people their own social obligations took preference of the death of a friend, and could put himself in her place by dint of his instinctive politeness. But that of the Duchess enabled her also to perceive in a vague way that the dinner to which she was going must count for less to Swann than his own death. And so, while continuing on her way towards the carriage, she let her shoulders droop, saying: ‘Don’t worry about our dinner. It’s not of any importance!’ But this put the Duke in a bad humour, who exclaimed: ‘Come, Oriane, don’t stop there chattering like that and exchanging your jeremiads with Swann; you know very well that Mme de Saint-Euverte insists on sitting down to table at eight o’clock sharp. We must know what you propose to do; the horses have been waiting for a good five minutes. I beg your pardon, Charles,’ he went on, turning to Swann, ‘but it’s ten minutes to eight already. Oriane is always late, and it will take us more than five minutes to get to old Saint-Euverte’s.’ Mme de Guermantes advanced resolutely towards the carriage and uttered a last farewell to Swann. ‘You know, we can talk about that another time; I don’t believe a word you’ve been saying, but we must discuss it quietly. I expect they gave you a dreadful fright, come to luncheon, whatever day you like,’ (with Mme de Guermantes things always resolved themselves into luncheons) ‘you will let me know your day and time,’ and lifting her red skirt, she set her foot on the step. She was just getting into the carriage when, seeing this foot exposed, the Duke cried in a terrifying voice: ‘Oriane, what have you been thinking of, you wretch? You’ve kept on your black shoes! With a red dress! Go upstairs quick and put on red shoes, or rather,’ he said to the footman, ‘tell the lady’s maid at once to bring down a pair of red shoes.’ ‘But, my dear,’ replied the Duchess gently, annoyed to see that Swann, who was leaving the house with me but had stood back to allow the carriage to pass out in front of us, could hear, ‘since we are late.’ ‘No, no, we have plenty of time. It is only ten to; it won’t take us ten minutes to get to the Parc Monceau. And, after all, what would it matter? If we turned up at half past eight they’d have to wait for us, but you can’t possibly go there in a red dress and black shoes.