My Years With Proust - Day 714

   Meanwhile at the other end of Paris there was taking place a spectacle of a very different kind. Mme Berma, as I had said, had invited a number of people to a tea-party in honour of her daughter and her son-in-law.  But the guests were in no hurry to arrive.  Having learnt that Rachel was to recite poetry at the Princesse de Guermantes's (which utterly scandalised Berma, who from her own lofty position as a great artist looked down on Rachel as still no more than a kept woman who, because Saint-Loup paid for the dresses which she wore on the stage, was allowed to appear in the plays in which she herself, Berma, took the leading roles - and scandalised her all the more because a rumour had run round Paris that, though the invitations were in the name of the Princesse de Guermantes, it was in effect Rachel who was acting as hostess in the Princess's house), Berma had written a second time to certain faithful friends to insist that they should not miss her tea-party, for she was aware that they were also friends of the Princesse de Guermantes, whom they had known when seh was Mme Verdurin.  And now the hours were passing, and still nobody arrived to visit Berma.  Bloch, having been asked whether he meant to come, had ingenuously replied: "No, I would rather go to the Princesse de Guermantes's," and this, alas! was what everyone in his heart of hearts had decided.

Marcel Proust, Time Regained, pp. 1045-1046

And the world continues to change.  At the exact same time that the party at the Princesse de Guermantes's mansion was being celebrated another party was being ignored.  Mme Berma, the actress who had so captivated a young Marcel, was throwing a universally ignored party.  Rachel, who had passed from prostitute to mistress to celebrity wife was getting to recite a poem at the popular party, while the truly great actress, Mme Berma, had to fact the humiliation of hosting a non-event - and eventually having to crawl to the de Guermantes party.  It's not just today that we celebrate whores, although we've added the unique wrinkle of electing them president.