but, since the accident to her jaw, she had abandoned the effort involved in real hilarity, and had substituted a kind of symbolical dumb-show which signified, without endangering or even fatiguing her in any way, that she was 'laughing until she cried.' At the least witticism aimed by any of the circle against a 'bore,' or against a former member of the circle who was now relegated to the limbo of 'bores'-and to the utter despair of M. Verdurin, who had always made out that he was just as easily amused as his wife, but who, since his laughter was the 'real thing,' was out of breath in a moment, and so was overtaken and vanquished by her device of a feigned but continuous hilarity-she would utter a shrill cry, shut tight her little bird-like eyes, which were beginning to be clouded over by a cataract, and quickly, as though she had only just time to avoid some indecent sight or to parry a mortal blow, burying her face in her hands, which completely engulfed it, and prevented her from seeing anything at all, she would appear to be struggling to suppress, to eradicate a laugh which, were she to give way to it, must inevitably leave her inanimate.
"Etxeko" batek "aspergarri" baten kontra, edo aspergarrien eremura iraitzitako etxeko ohi baten kontra, hitz-erdia esan orduko-eta M. Verdurinen ernegurik handienerako esan ere, zeren berau, luzaroan bere emaztea bezain trenpu oneko izaten ahalegindu arren, benetako barre-algarak eginez berehala arnasbehartzen baitzen, eta urrundu beharra izaten baitzuen, sasi-irri-karkaila etengabe hark bentzuturik-, etxekoandreak oihu ttipi bat jaulkitzen zuen, itxi egiten zituen erabat bere txori-begiak, gandu batek lausotzen hasiak, eta tupustean, ozta-ozta asti doia izan bailuen ikuskizun lizun batetik begia apartatu edo herio-joaldi bati kasu emateko, bere burua esku bien artera murgilduz, eskuok aurpegia zeharo estaltzen eta ezkutatzen ziotela, ematen zuen heriosuhar saiatzen ari zela, hari amore emanez gero, zorabiozko ondoeza eragingo liokeen barre hura menderatzen, deuseztatzen.