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University of Illinois Library ck rte ke ; 1533 L161—H41 ee i ‘ , Cah, REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST PART THREE THE GUERMANTES WAY ““When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past . This volume is a translation of “Le Coté de Guermantes I,” the third part of Marcel Proust’s continuous novel “A la Recherche du Temps Perdu’’ (Remembrance of Things Past). The parts already published are: I. Du Coté de Chez Swann . . . « (1913) Il. A l’Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs (awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1919) ne (1918) III. Le Cété de GuermantessI . . . . (1920) IV. Le Coté de Guermantes IIT . . . (1927 Sodome et Gomorrhe I ; bie) V. Sodome et Gomorrhe II. . . « « ,(1922) Via Praonnieres ois) «se ese azay The remaining parts will be entitled: Vil. Albertine Disparue VUI. Le Temps Retrouvé “Du Coté de Chez Swann” has been published in England and America aj) SWANN’S WAY, “A lOmbre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs” as WITHIN A BUDDING GROVE. THE GUERMANTES WAY by MARCEL PROUST Translated by C. K. SCOTT MONCRIEFF Volume One LA NY NEW YORK THOMAS SELTZER O25 Copyright, 1925, by THOMAS SELTZER, Inc. All rights reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Atk, —7 ow. COM, TL OQ tg 0 i Sali eg Oc, Es v.| auTHOR’s DEDICATION A LEON DAUDET A l’auteur du VOYAGE DE SHAKESPEARE, du PARTAGE DE L’ENFANT, de V’ASTRE NOIR, de FANTOMES ET VIVANTS, du MONDE DES IMAGES, de tant de chefs-d’oeuvre, A Vincomparable ami en temoignage de reconnaissance et d’admiration M. P. vid ie ihe \ en } i ii ‘ rh x a an 7. ‘ . - Wes J hel n a ¥ ; : cx, e i ae! iat f fe . AL om pa ai TRANSLATOR’S DEDICATION To Mrs. H on her Birthday Oberon, in the ATHENIAN glade, Weduced by deft Tirantia’s power, Invented arts for NaTuRE’s aid And from a snowflake shaped a flower: ‘Narurg, to outdo him, wrought of human clay A fairy blossom, which we acclaim to-day. Hess, to high Otympus borne, Undoomed to death, by age uncurst, XERES and Porto, night and morn, | Let flow, to appease celestial thirst: Ew’n so, untouched by years that envious pass YouTu greets the guests to-night and fills the glass. |Hesione, for monstrous feast, Against a rock was chained, to die; “Young HERCLES came, he slew the beast, Nor won the award Bi chivalry: E.S. P. H., whom monsters hold in awe, Shield Pee from injury, and enforce the law! Cc. K. S. M. Ae lL i s \e ’ ti am : oc ee Meg Rata mS id ne Ted eit 2 ‘ate ” er waa if ng oF Senation 7 . ¢ RY ae iy sa) Wane shee Me 2 Wise dial ¥ 14 Vehapety Le Ne ae , - miskat, 1 Se) | Ree: ER fig 825 sore ra Woe Vea ae ces! ee shy % we oe + hols ee i ce SOnenane ae The, aE han ey > - A rake bil . CONTENTS | | i | | | | ‘chapter One Volume I page | Names of People: The Duchess de Guermantes—Saint-Loup at | Donciéves—Mme. de Villeparisis at home—My grandmother’s iMness. Chapter One (continued) Volume II page My grandmother’s illness (continued )—Bergotte’s illness—The | Duke and the Doctor—Decline and death of my grandmother. Chapter Two Volume II page | A visit from Albertine—Prospeét of rich brides for certain friends | of Saint-Loup—The wit of the Guermantes, as displayed before the Princess de Parme—A strange visit to M. de Charlus—His charatier puzzles me more and more—The red shoes of the Duchess. The French text of Le Cété de Guermantes being extremely inaccurate, every care has been taken to correct it in the process of translation. In three places in this volume the sequence of paragraphs has been altered, as the reader may discover by comparing the French and English texts. 49 Bet iho es at in sata: re Leics, a 1% ae bk ely aN a, nn) We 5 bi “ shang be ey Rae Ee A 4 , , , Ms ee A THE GUERMANTES WAY CHAPTER ‘ONE HE twittering of the birds at daybreak sounded ie to Frangoise. Every word uttered by the | maids upstairs made her jump; disturbed by all their running about, she kept asking herself what they could be doing. In other words, we had moved. Certainly the servants had made no less noise in the attics of our old home; but she knew them, she had made of their comings and goings familiar events. Now she faced even silence with a strained attention. And as our new neighbourhood appeared to be as quiet as the boulevard on to which we had hitherto looked had been noisy, the song (distinct at a distance, when it was still quite faint, like an orchestral motif) of a passer-by brought tears to the eyes of a Frangoise in exile. And so if I had been tempted to laugh vat her in her misery at having to leave a house in which ‘she was “so well respected on all sides” and had packed her trunks with tears, according to the Use of Combray, \declaring superior to all possible houses that which had (been ours, on the other hand I, who found it as hard to assimilate new as I found it easy to abandon old condi- tions, I felt myself drawn towards our old servant when I ‘saw that this installation of herself in a building where she had not received from the hall-porter, who did not yet ‘Know us, the marks of respect necessary to her moral wellbeing, had brought her positively to the verge of I I A REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST dissolution. She alone could understand what I was} feeling ; certainly her young footman was not the person to do so; for him, who was as unlike the Combray type as it was possible to conceive, packing up, moving, living} in another district, were all like taking a holiday in which# the novelty of one’s surroundings gave one the same senseff of refreshment as if one had actually travelled; he thought he was in the country ; and a cold in the headg afforded him, as though he had been sitting in a draughty railway carriage, the delicious sensation of having seen the world ; at each fresh sneeze he rejoiced that he hadg found so smart a place, having always longed to be with people who travelled a lot. And so, without giving him a thought, I went straight to Frangoise, who, in return for my having laughed at her tears over a removal which had left me cold, now shewed an icy indifference to my§ sorrow, but because she shared it. The “sensibility ” claimed by neurotic people is matched by their egotism; they cannot abide the flaunting by others of the sufferings to which they pay an ever increasing attention in them- selves. Francoise, who would not allow the least of her own ailments to pass unnoticed, if I were in pain would’ turn her head from me so that I should not have the satisfaction of seeing my sufferings pitied, or so much as observed. It was the same as soon as I tried to speak to her about our new house. Moreover, having been obliged, a day or two later, to return to the house we had just left, to retrieve some clothes which had been overlooked in our removal, while I, as a result of it, had still a “temperature ”, and like a boa constrictor that has just swallowed an ox felt myself painfully distended by the sight of a long trunk which my eyes had still to digest, 2 THE GUERMANTES WAY )rancoise, with true feminine inconstancy, came back say- nig that she had really thought she would stifle on our «.d boulevard, it was so stuffy, that she had found it quite 2 day’s journey to get there, that never had she seen such hairs, that she would not go back to live there for a king’s *insom, not if you were to offer her millions—a pure ¢|ypothesis—and that everything (everything, that is to djty, to do with the kitchen and “ usual offices ”) was much yietter fitted up in the new house. Which, it is high time now that the reader should be told—and told also that we djad moved into it because my grandmother, not having hieen at all well (though we took care to keep this reason nom her), was in need of better air—was a flat forming tart of the Hotel de Guermantes. i} At the age when a Name, offering us an image of the yjnknowable which we have poured into its mould, while "\t the same moment it connotes for us also an existing yjlace, forces us accordingly to identify one with the other 8} such a point that we set out to seek in a city for a ‘aul which it cannot embody but which we have no longer tae power to expel from the sound of its name, it is not dialy to towns and rivers that names give an individuality, ¢|3 do allegorical paintings, it is not only the physical uni- slerse which they pattern with differences, people with Kiarvels, there is the social universe also; and so every Mlistoric house, in town or country, has its lady or its fairy, ts every forest has its spirit, as there is a nymph for every N:ream. Sometimes, hidden in the heart of its name, the djiiry is Benetoriied’ to suit the life of our imagination by s\‘hich she lives; thus it was that the atmosphere in which y/Ime. de Svecuattes existed in me, after having been for tjears no more than the shadow cast by a magic lantern 3 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST _ slide or the light falling through a painted window, bea to let its colours fade when quite other dreams imprfeg' nated it with the bubbling coolness of her flowing streams And yet the fairy must perish 1f we come in contac with the real person to whom her name corresponds, fo: that person the name then begins to reflect, and she ha: in her nothing of the fairy; the fairy may revive if we remove ourself from the person, but if we remain in he: presence the fairy definitely dies and with her the name as happened to the family of Lusignan, which was fate¢ to become extinct on the day when the fairy Meélusine should disappear. Then the Name, beneath our succes sive “restorations” of which we may end by finding, a their original, the beautiful portrait of a strange lady whom we are never to meet, is nothing more than th mere photograph, for identification, to which we refer i order to decide whether we know, whether or not we ought to bow to a person who passes us in the street. Bu let a sensation from a bygone year—like those recordin; instruments which preserve the sound and the manner o the various artists who have sung or played into them enable our memory to make us hear that name with thi particular ring with which it then sounded in our ears then, while the name itself has apparently not changed we feel the distance that separates the dreams which a different times its same syllables have meant to us. Fo a moment, from the clear echo of its warbling in somé distant spring, we can extract, as from the little tube which we use in painting, the exact, forgotten, mysteriou fresh tint of the days which we had believed ourself to b recalling, when, like a bad painter, we were giving to th whole of our past, spread out on the same canvas, thi 4 THE GUERMANTES WAY Jynes, conventional and all alike, of our unprompted mem- |ry. Whereas on the contrary, each of the moments that jomposed it employed, for an original creation, in a match- iss harmony, the colour of those days which we no longer tnow, and which, for that matter, will still suddenly en- dapture me if by any chance the name “Guermantes” i2suming for a moment, after all these years, the sound, |9 different from its sound to-day, which it had for me jn the day of Mlle. Percepied’s marriage, brings back to he that mauve—so delicate, almost too bright, too new -with which the billowy scarf of the young Duchess tlowed, and, like two periwinkle flowers, growing beyond each and blossoming now again, her two eyes, sunlit with 4n azure smile. And the name Guermantes of those days 13 also like one of those little balloons which have been wiled with oxygen, or some such gas; when I come to (xplode it, to make it emit what it contains, I breathe the gir of the Combray of that year, of that day, mingled with {i fragrance of hawthorn blossom blown by the wind from he corner of the square, harbinger of rain, which now gent the sun packing, now let him spread himself over the Jed woollen carpet to the sacristy, steeping it in a bright eranium scarlet, with that, so to speak, Wagnerian har- | ony i in its gaiety which makes the coerce: service al- ft ays impressive. But even apart from rare moments stich 48 these, in which suddenly we feel the original entity guiver and resume its form, carve itself out of the syllables \:ow soundless, dead; if, in the giddy rush of daily life, 49 which they serve only -the most practical ‘purposes, yiames have lost all their colour, like a prismatic top that pins too quickly and seems only grey, when, on the other land, in our musings we reflect, we seek, so as to return 5 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST to the past, to slacken, to suspend the perpetual motion by which we are borne along, gradually we see once mor appear, side by side, but entirely distinct from one an- other, the tints which in the course of our existence have been successively presented to us by a single name. | What form was assumed in my mind by this name Guermantes when my first nurse—knowing no more, probably, than I know to-day in whose honour it had been composed—sang me to sleep with that old ditty, Gloire 4 la Marquise de Guermantes, or when, some years later, the veteran Maréchal de Guermantes, making my nursery- maid’s bosom swell with pride, stopped in the Champs Elysees to remark: “A fine child, that!” and gave m a chocolate drop from his comfit-box, I cannot, of course now say. Those years of my earliest childhood are n reality to abandon a position that was no longer tenable established themselves anew in one slightly less advance until they were obliged to retire still farther. And, wit Mme. de Guermantes, was transformed simultaneously her dwelling, itself also the offspring of that name, fer- tilised from year to year by some word or other that came to my ears and modulated the tone of my musings; that dwelling of hers reflected them in its very stones, which had turned to mirrors, like the surface of a cloud or of a Jake. A dungeon keep without mass, no more indeed than 6 THE GUERMANTES WAY a band of orange light from the summit of which the lord and his lady dealt out life and death to their vassals, vhad given place—right at the end of that “ Guermantes “way” along which, on so many summer afternoons, | retraced with my parents the course of the Vivonne—to that land of bubbling streams where the Duchess taught me to fish for trout and to know the names of the flowers whose red and purple clusters adorned the walls of the neighbouring gardens; then it had been the ancient heri- jtage, famous in song and story, from which the proud race of Guermantes, like a carved and mellow tower that traverses the ages, had risen already over France when the sky was still empty at those points where, later, were ito rise Notre Dame of Paris and Notre Dame of Chartres, hen on the summit of the hill of Laon the nave of its cathedral had not yet been poised, like the Ark of the Deluge on the summit of Mount Ararat, crowded with Patriarchs and Judges anxiously leaning from its windows to see whether the wrath of God were yet appeased, ‘carrying with it the types of the vegetation that was to multiply on the earth, brimming over with animals which have escaped even by the towers, where oxen grazing calmly upon the roof look down over the plains of Cham- ‘pagne; when the traveller who left Beauvais at the close ‘of day did not yet see, following him and turning with his road, outspread against the gilded screen of the western sky, the black, ribbed wings of the cathedral. It was, this “Guermantes”, like the scene of a novel, an imaginary landscape which I could with difficulty picture to myself and longed all the more to discover, set in the midst of ‘real lands and roads which all of a sudden would become alive with heraldic details, within a few miles of a railway 7 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST station; I recalled the names of the places round it as if they had been situated at the foot of Parnassus or of | Helicon, and they seemed precious to me, as the physical conditions—in the realm of topographical science—re- quired for the production of an unaccountable phenome-| non. I saw again the escutcheons blazoned beneath the windows of Combray church; their quarters filled, century after century, with all the lordships which, by marriage or conquest, this illustrious house had brought flying to it from all the corners of Germany, Italy and France; vast territories in the North, strong cities in the South, assem- bled there to group themselves in Guermantes, and, los-' ing their material quality, to inscribe allegorically their dungeon vert, or castle triple-towered argent upon its. azure field. I had heard of the famous tapestries of Guer- mantes, I could see them, mediaeval and blue, a trifle coarse, detach themselves like a floating cloud from the legendary, amaranthine name at the foot of the ancient | forest in which Childebert went so often hunting; and _ this delicate, mysterious background of their lands, this vista of the ages, it seemed to me that, as effectively as by journeying to see them, I might penetrate all their secrets simply by coming in contact for a moment in Paris with Mme. de Guermantes, the princess paramount of the place and lady of the lake, as if her face, her speech must possess the local charm of forest groves and streams, and the same secular peculiarities as the old cus- toms recorded in her archives. But then I had met Saint- Loup; he had told me that the castle had borne the name of Guermantes only since the seventeenth century, when that family had acquired it. They had lived, until then, in the neighbourhood, but their title was not taken from 8 THE GUERMANTES WAY those parts. The village of Guermantes had received its |.ame from the castle round which it had been built, and 30 that it should not destroy the view from the castle, a servitude, still in force, traced the line of its streets and limited the height of its houses. As for the tapestries, }chey were by Boucher, bought in the nineteenth century }oy a Guermantes with a taste for the arts, and hung, mterspersed with a number of sporting pictures of no merit which he himself had painted, in a hideous drawing- }room upholstered in “adrianople” and plush. By these revelations Saint-Loup had introduced into the castle ele- ments foreign to the name of Guermantes which made it impossible for me to continue to extract solely from the resonance of the syllables the stone and mortar of its walls. And so, in the heart of the name, was effaced the castle mirrored in its lake, and what now became apparent to me, surrounding Mme. de Guermantes as her dwelling, had been her house in Paris, the Hotel de Guermantes, limpid like its name, for no material and opaque element intervened to interrupt and blind its transparence. As the word church signifies not only the temple but the assembly of the faithful also, this Hétel de Guermantes comprised all those who shared the life of the Duchess, but these intimates on whom I had never set eyes were for me only famous and poetic names, and knowing exclusively per- sons who themselves also were names only, did but en- hance and protect the mystery of the Duchess by extend- ing all round her a vast halo which at the most declined in brilliance as its circumference increased. In the parties which she gave, since I could not imagine the guests as having any bodies, any moustaches, any boots, as making any utterances that were commonplace, 9 | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | oz even original in a human and rational way, this whirl- | pool of names, introducing less material substance than would a phantom banquet or a spectral ball, round that | statuette in Dresden china which was Madame de Guer- | mantes, kept for her palace of glass the transparence of a | showcase. Then, after Saint-Loup had told me various anecdotes about his cousin’s chaplain, her gardener, and the rest, the Hétel de Guermantes had become—as the Louvre might have been in days gone by—a kind of castle, | surrounded, in the very heart of Paris, by its own domains, | acquired by inheritance, by virtue of an ancient right that had quaintly survived, over which she still enjoyed | feudal privileges. But this last dwelling itself vanished | when we had come to live beside Mme. de Villeparisis in one of the flats adjoining that occupied by Mme. de Guer- | mantes in a wing of the Hotel. It was one of those old | town houses, a few of which are perhaps still to be found, | in which the court of honour—whether they were alluvial | deposits washed there by the rising tide of democracy, or a legacy from a more primitive time when the different | trades were clustered round the overlord—is flanked by little shops and workrooms, a shoemaker’s, for instance, or + a tailor’s, such as we see nestling between the buttresses of those cathedrals which the aesthetic zeal of the restorer has not swept clear of such accretions; a porter who also | does cobbling, keeps hens, grows flowers, and, at the far end, in the main building, a “ Comtesse” who, when she | drives out in her old carriage and pair, flaunting on her | hat a few nasturtiums which seem to have escaped from the plot by the porter’s lodge (with, by the coachman’s side on the box, a footman who gets down to leave cards at every aristocratic mansion in the neighbourhood), scat- | 10 THE GUERMANTES WAY Jers vague little smiles and waves her hand in greeting Jo the porter’s children and to such of her respectable \ellow-tenants as may happen to be passing, who, to her j:ontemptuous affability and levelling pride, seem all the } ame. In the house in which we had now come to live, the sreat lady at the end of the courtyard was a Duchess, mart and still quite young. She was, in fact, Mme. de Suermantes and, thanks to Frangoise, I soon came to snow all about her household. For the Guermantes (to vhom Francoise regularly alluded as the people “ below Ae or “ downstairs”) were her constant preoccupation from he first thing in the morning when, as she did Mamma’s aair, casting a forbidden, irresistible, furtive glance down mto the courtyard, she would say: “ Look at that, now; 1 pair of holy Sisters; that'll be for downstairs, surely; ” or, “Oh! just look at the fine pheasants in the kitchen window; no need to ask where they came from, the Duke will have been out with his gun! ”—until the last thing at night when, if her ear, while she was putting out my night-things, caught a few notes of a song, she would conclude: “They’re having company down below; gay doings, I’ll be bound;” whereupon, in her symmetrical face, beneath the arch of her now snow-white hair, a smile from her young days, sprightly but proper, would for a moment set each of her features in its place, arrang- ing them in an intricate and special order, as though for a country-dance. But the moment in the life of the Guermantes which excited the keenest interest in Francoise, gave her the most complete satisfaction and at the same time the sharpest annoyance was that at which, the two halves of Il REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST the great gate having been thrust apart, the Duchess stepped into her carriage. It was generally a little while after our servants had finished the celebration of that sort of solemn passover which none might disturb, called their midday dinner, during which they were so far tabo that my father himself was not allowed to ring for them, knowing moreover that none of them would have paid any more attention to the fifth peal than to the first, and that the discourtesy would therefore have been a pure waste of time and trouble, though not without trouble in store for himself. For Frangoise (who, in her old age, lost no opportunity of standing upon her dignity) would without fail have presented him, for the rest of the day, with a face covered with the tiny red cuneiform hiero glyphs by which she made visible—though by no means legible—to the outer world the long tale of her griefs and the profound reasons for her dissatisfactions. She would enlarge upon them, too, in a running “ aside”’, : not so that we could catch her words. She called this prac tice—which, she imagined, must be infuriating, “ morti- fying” as she herself put it, “ Veune ” to us—“ saying low masses all the blessed day.” | The last rites accomplished, Francoise, who was at one and the same time, as in the primitive church, the cele- brant and one of the faithful, helped herself to a final glass, undid the napkin from her throat, folded it after wiping from her lips a stain of watered wine and coffee, slipped it into its ring, turned a doleful ‘eye to thank “her” young footman who, to shew his zeal in her serv- ice, was saying: “Come, ma’am, a drop more of the grape; it’s d’licious to-day,” and went straight across to the window, which she flung open, protesting that it was 12 THE GUERMANTES WAY @ously casting, as she turned the latch and let in the fresh ur, a glance of studied indifference into the courtyard joelow, she furtively elicited the conclusion that the yDuchess was not ready yet to start, brooded for a mo- nent with contemptuous, impassioned eyes over the wait- | ng carriage, and, this meed of attention once paid to the Ichings of the earth, raised them towards the heavens, dvhose purity she had already divined from the sweetness af the air and the warmth of the sun; and let them rest jon a corner of the roof, at the place where, every spring, j:here came and built, immediately over the chimney of jmy bedroom, a pair of pigeons like those she used to aear cooing from her kitchen at Combray. “Ah! Combray, Combray!” she cried. And the almost {singing tone in which she declaimed this invocation might, :aken with the Arlesian purity of her features, have made jhe onlooker suspect her of a Southern origin and that 4:he lost land which she was lamenting was no more, really, dchan a land of adoption. If so, he would have been wrong, for it seems that there is no province that has not |ts own South-country; do we not indeed constantly meet j5avoyards and Bretons in whose speech we find all those Joleasing transpositions of longs and shorts that are char-. ij2cteristic of the Southerner? “Ah, Combray, when shall I ook on thee again, poor land! When shall I pass the dlessed day among thy hawthorns, under our own poor ily-oaks, hearing the grasshoppers sing, and the Vivonne jmaking a little noise like someone whispering, instead of chat wretched bell from our young master, who can never stay still for half an hour on end without having me run the length of that wicked corridor. And even then he 13 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST makes out I don’t come quick enough; you’ld need to) hear the bell ring before he has pulled it, and if you’re a minute late, away he flies into the most towering rage. | Alas, poor Combray; maybe I shall see thee only in death, ren they drop me like a stone into the hollow of the. tomb. And so, nevermore shall I smell thy lovely haw-. thorns, so white and all. But in the sleep of death I dare! say I shall still hear those three peals of the bell which, will have driven me to damnation in this world.” Her soliloquy was interrupted by the voice of the waist- coat-maker downstairs, the same who had so delighted my grandmother once, long ago, when she had gone to pay a call on Mme. de Villeparisis, and now occupied no less exalted a place in Frangoise’s affections. Having raised, his head when he heard our window open, he had already | been trying for some time to attract his neighbour’s atten-. tion, in order to bid her good day. The coquetry of the| young girl that Francoise had once been softened and refined for M. Jupien the querulous face of our old cook,| dulled by age, ill-temper and the heat of the kitchen fire, and it was with a charming blend of reserve, familiarity and modesty that she bestowed a gracious salutation on the waistcoat-maker, but without making any audible re- sponse, for if she did infringe Mamma’s orders by look- ing into the courtyard, she would never have dared to go the length of talking from the window, which would have been quite enough (according to her) to bring down on: her “a whole chapter” from the Mistress. She pointed to the waiting carriage, as who should say: “A fine pair, eh!” though what she actually muttered was: “ What an old rattle-trap!” but principally because she knew that he would be bound to answer, putting his hand 14 : 8 THE GUERMANTES WAY o his lips so as to be audible without having to shout: “ You could have one too if you liked, as good as they iave and better, I dare say, only you don’t care for that ort of thing.” And Frangoise, after a modest, evasive signal of delight, he meaning of which was, more or less: “Tastes differ, rou know; simplicity’s the rule in this house,” shut the vindow again in case Mamma should come in. These ‘you” who might have had more horses than the Guer- nantes were ourselves, but Jupien was right in saying ‘you” since, except for a few purely personal gratifi- ations, such as, when she coughed all day long without easing and everyone in the house was afraid of catching ier cold, that of pretending, with an irritating little titter, hat she had not got a cold, like those plants that an nimal to which they are wholly attached keeps alive with ood which it catches, eats and digests for them and of vhich it offers them the ultimate and easily assimilable esidue, Francoise lived with us in full community; it vas we who, with our virtues, our wealth, our style of iving, must take on ourselves the task of concocting hose little sops to her vanity out of which was formed —with the addition of the recognised rights of freely prac- ising the cult of the midday dinner according to the tra- litional custom, which included a mouthful of air at the vindow when the meal was finished, a certain amount of oitering in the street when she went out to do her market- ng, and a holiday on Sundays when she paid a visit to ler niece—the portion of happiness indispensable to her *xistence. And so it can be understood that Francoise night well have succumbed in those first days of our nigration, a victim, in a house where my father’s claims 15 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST to distinction were not yet alk to a malady which she herself called “wearying”, wearying in the active sense in which the word ennui is employed by Corneille, or in the last letters of soldiers who end by taking their own lives because they are wearying for their girls or for their native villages. Francoise’s wearying had soon been cured by none other than Jupien, for he at once procured her a pleasure no less keen, indeed more refined than she would have felt if we had decided to keep a carriage, “Very good class, those Juliens,” (for Francoise readily assimilated new names to those with which she was already familiar) “very worthy people; you can see it written on their faces.” Jupien was in fact able to under- stand, and to inform the world that if we did not keep a carriage it was because we had no wish for one. This new friend of Francoise was very little at home, having ob- tained a post in one of the Government offices. A waist- coat-maker first of all, with the “ chit of a girl” whom my grandmother had taken for his daughter, he had lost all interest in the exercise of that calling after his assistant (who, when still little more than a child, had shewn great skill in darning a torn skirt, that day when my grand- mother had gone to call on Mme. de Villeparisis) had turned to ladies’ fashions and become a seamstress. A prentice hand, to begin with, in a dressmaker’s workroom, set to stitch a seam, to fasten a flounce, to sew on a butto or to press a crease, to fix a waistband with hooks an eyes, she had quickly risen to be second and then chief assistant, and having formed a connexion of her own among ladies of fashion now worked at home, that is to Say in our courtyard, generally with one or two of her young friends from the workroom, whom she had taken 16 THE GUERMANTES WAY on as apprentices. After this, Jupien’s presence in the ‘piace had ceased to matter. No doubt the little girl (a big igirl by this time) had often to cut out waistcoats still. But with her friends to assist her she needed no one besides. And so Jupien, her uncle, had sought employment outside. ‘He was free at first to return home at midday, then, when he had definitely succeeded the man whose substitute only he had begun by being, not before dinner-time. His ap- pointment to the ‘ ‘regular establishment” was, fortu- nately, not announced until some weeks after our arrival, ‘so that his courtesy could be brought to bear on her long ‘enough to help Francoise to pass through the first, most difficult phase without undue suffering. At the same time, jand without underrating his value to Francoise as, so to speak, a sedative during the period of transition, I am bound to say that my first impression of Jupien had been far from favourable. At a little distance, entirely ruining the effect that his plump cheeks and vivid colouring would otherwise have produced, his eyes, brimming with a compassionate, mournful, dreamy gaze, led one to sup- pose that he was seriously ill or had just suffered a great bereavement. Not only was he nothing of the sort, but as soon as he opened his mouth (and his speech, by the way, was perfect) he was quite markedly cynical and cold. There resulted from this discord between eyes and lips a certain falsity which was not attractive, and by which he had himself the air of being made as uncomfortable as a guest who arrives in morning dress at a party where everyone else is in evening dress, or as a commoner who having to speak to a Royal Personage does not know exactly how he ought to address him and gets round the difficulty by cutting down his remarks to almost nothing. I 17 B REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST Jupien’s (here the comparison ends) were, on the con- trary, charming. Indeed, corresponding possibly to this overflowing of his face by his eyes (which one ceased to notice when one came to know him), I soon discerned in him a rare intellect, and one of the most spontaneously literary that it has been my privilege to come across, in the sense that, probably without education, he possessed or had assimilated, with the help only of a few books skimmed in early life, the most ingenious turns of speech, The most gifted people that I had known had died young. And so I was convinced that Jupien’s life would soon be cut short. Kindness was among his qualities, and pity, the most delicate and the most generous feelings for others. But his part in the life of Francoise had soon ceased ta be indispensable. She had learned to put up with under- studies. Indeed, when a tradesman or servant came to our door with a parcel or message, while seeming to pay no atten- tion and merely pointing vaguely to an empty chair, Fran- coise so skilfully put to the best advantage the few second that he spent in the kitchen, while he waited for Mamma’s answer, that it was very seldom that the stranger went away without having ineradicably engraved upon hi memory the conviction that, if we “did not have” an particular thing, it was because we had “no wish” for it; If she made such a point of other people’s knowing that we “had money” (for she knew nothing of what Saint- Loup used to call partitive articles, and said simply “ have money ”, “fetch water”), of their realising that we wer rich, it was not because riches with nothing else besides. riches without virtue, were in her eyes the supreme good in life; but virtue without riches was not her ideal either 18 THE GUERMANTES WAY Riches were for her, so to speak, a necessary condition of virtue, failing which virtue itself would lack both merit and charm. She distinguished so little between them that she had come in time to invest each with the other’s attri- butes, to expect some material comfort from virtue, to discover something edifying in riches. As soon as she had shut the window again, which she did quickly—otherwise Mamma would, it appeared, have heaped on her “ every conceivable insult ”»—Frangoise be- gan with many groans and sighs to put straight the kitchen table. _ “There are some Guermantes who stay in the Rue de a Chaise,” began my father’s valet; “I had a friend who used to be with them; he was their second coachman. And [ know a fellow, not my old pal, but his brother-in-law, who did his time in the Army with one of the Baron de Guermantes’s stud grooms. Does your mother know you're out?” added the valet, who was in the habit, just as he used to hum the popular airs of the season, of Deppering his conversation with all the latest witticisms. _ Frangoise, with the tired eyes of an ageing woman, 2yes which moreover saw everything from Combray, in a hazy distance, made out not the witticism that underlay che words, but that there must be something witty in them since they bore no relation to the rest of his speech and nad been uttered with considerable emphasis by one whom she knew to be a joker. She smiled at him, there- ‘ore, with an air of benevolent bewilderment, as who should say: “ Always the same, that Victor!” And she Was genuinely pleased, knowing that listening to smart sayings of this sort was akin—if remotely—to those re- dutable social pleasures for which, in every class of 19 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST society, people make haste to dress themselves in their best and run the risk of catching cold. Furthermore, she believed the valet to be a friend after her own heart, for he never left off denouncing, with fierce indignation, the appalling measures which the Republic was about to en- force against the clergy. Francoise had not yet learned that our cruellest adversaries are not those who contradict and try to convince us, but those who magnify or invent reports which may make us unhappy, taking care not te include any appearance of justification, which might lessen our discomfort, and perhaps give us some slight regard for a party which they make a point of displaying to us to complete our torment, as being at once terrible and triumphant. “The Duchess must be connected with all that lots said Francoise, bringing the conversation back to the Guermantes of the Rue de la Chaise, as one plays a piect over again from the andante. “I can’t recall who it wai told me that one of them had married a cousin of thi Duke. It’s the same kindred, anyway. Ay, they’re a grea family, the Guermantes!” she added, in a tone of respect founding the greatness of the family at once on the num ber of its branches and the brilliance of its connexions as Pascal founds the truth of Religion on Reason and of the Authority of the Scriptures. F or since there was bu the single word “great” to express both meanings, i seemed to her that they formed a single idea, her vocabu lary, like cut stones sometimes, shewing thus on certai of its facets a flaw which projected a ray of darkness int the recesses of her mind. “I wonder now if it wouldn’ be them that have their castle at Guermantes, not a scor of miles from Combray; then they must be kin to thei 20 THE GUERMANTES WAY ousin at Algiers, too.” My mother and I long asked our- elves who this cousin at Algiers could be until finally we liscovered that Francoise meant by the name “ Algiers ” he town of Angers. What is far off may be more familiar ous than what is quite near. Francoise, who knew the came “ Algiers ” from some particularly unpleasant dates hat used to be given us at the New Year, had never heard f Angers. Her language, like the French language itself, nd especially that of place-names, was thickly strewn mth errors. “I meant to talk to their butler about it. Vhat is it again you call him?” she interrupted herself s though putting a formal question as to the correct pro- edure, which she went on to answer with: “ Oh, of durse, it’s Antoine you call him!” as though Antoine had een a title. “ He’s the one who could tell me, but he’s uite the gentleman, he is, a great scholar, you’ld say 1ey’d cut his tongue out, or that he’d forgotten to learn » speak. He makes no response when you talk to him,” ent on Francoise, who used “ make response” in the ime sense as Mme. de Sévigné. “ But,” she added, quite atruthfully, “so long as I know what’s boiling in my ot, I don’t bother my head about what’s in other people’s. Vhatever he is, he’s not a Catholic, Besides, he’s not a vurageous man.” (This criticism might have led one to ippose that Francoise had changed her mind about phy- cal bravery which, according to her, in Combray days, wered men to the level of wild beasts. But it was not . “ Courageous ” meant simply a hard worker.) “ They ) Say, too, that he’s thievish as a magpie, but it doesn’t ) to believe all one hears. The servants never stay long ere because of the lodge; the porters are jealous and t the Duchess against them. But it’s safe to say that 21 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST he’s a real twister, that Antoine, and his Antoinesse 1 no better,” concluded Francoise, who, in furnishing th name “ Antoine ” with a feminine ending that would desig nate the butler’s wife, was inspired, no doubt, in her at of word-formation by an unconscious memory of th words chanoine and chanoinesse. If so, she was not fe wrong. There is still a street near Notre-Dame called Ru Chanoinesse, a name which must have been given to (since it was never inhabited by any but male Canons) b those Frenchmen of olden days of whom Frangoise wa properly speaking, the contemporary. She proceede moreover, at once to furnish another example of this wa of forming feminine endings, for she went on: “ But o1 thing sure and certain is that it’s the Duchess thi has Guermantes Castle. And it’s she that is the Lac Mayoress down in those parts. That’s always something “T can well believe that it is something,” came with co; viction from the footman, who had not detected the iron “You think so, do you, my boy, you think it’s som thing? Why, for folk like them to be Mayor and Mayores it’s just thank you for nothing. Ah, if it was mine, th Guermantes Castle, you wouldn’t see me setting foot Paris, I can tell you. I’m sure a family who’ve got som thing to go on with, like Monsieur and Madame het must have queer ideas to stay on in this wretched tov rather than get away down to Combray the mome they’re free to start, and no one hindering them. Why | they put off retiring? They’ve got everything they wai Why wait till they’re dead? Ah, if I had only a crust dry bread to eat and a faggot to keep me warm in wint a fine time I’ld have of it at home in my brother’s pc old house at Combray. Down there you do feel you 22 THE GUERMANTES WAY live; you haven’t all these houses stuck up in front of you, there is so little noise at night-time, you can hear the ss singing five miles off and more.” “That must indeed be fine!” exclaimed the young foot- man with enthusiasm, as though this last attraction had Seen as peculiar to Combray as the gondola is to Venice. ‘\ more recent arrival in the household than my father’s valet, he used to talk to Frangoise about things which ‘night interest not himself so much as her. And Fran- ‘oise, whose face wrinkled up in disgust when she was ‘reated as a mere cook, had for the young footman, who *eferred to her always as the “housekeeper”, that pe- ‘uliar tenderness which Princes not of the blood royal ‘eel towards the well- Hes young men who dignify ‘hem with a “ Highness ”’. me At any rate one Unease what one’s about, there, and what time of year it is. It isn’t like here where you won’t ‘ind one wretched buttercup flowering at holy Easter any ‘nore than you would at Christmas, and I can’t hear so nuch as the tiniest angelus ring when I lift my old bones out of bed in the morning. Down there, you can hear ‘very hour; there’s only the one poor bell, but you say 0 Bearself: ‘My brother will be coming in from the field tow,’ and you watch the daylight fade, and the bell rings ‘o bless the fruits of the earth, and you have time to take It turn before you light the lamp. But here it’s coy time und it’s night time, and you go to bed, and you can’t say ‘ny more ian the dumb beasts what you’ve been about Il day.” ' “1 gather Méséglise is a fine place, too, Madame,” woke in the young footman, who found that the conver- ation was becoming a little too abstract for his liking, 23 . mention Meéséglise. contemporary personage whose name the students hac | never supposed could possibly greet their ears from the REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST and happened to remember having heard us, at table ee “Oh! Meseglise, is it?” said Frangoise with the brody smile which one could always bring to her lips by uttering any of those names—Méséglise, Combray, Tansonville They were so intimate a part of her life that she felt, or meeting them outside it, on hearing them used in con: versation, a hilarity more or less ida to that which : professor excites in his class by making an allusion to som¢ height of the academic chair. Her pleasure arose also from the feeling that these places were something to her whicel they were not for the rest of the world, old companion} with whom one has shared many delights; and she smileg at them as if she found in them soncunte witty, becaus she did find there a great part of herself. “Yes, you may well say so, son, it is a pretty enoul place is Méséglise;” she went on with a tinkling laugh “but how did you ever come to hear tell of Méséglise?’ “How did I hear of Méséglise? But it’s a well-know place; people have told me about it—yes, over and ove again,” he assured her with that criminal inexactitud of the informer who, whenever we attempt to form al impartial estimate of the importance that a thing whic matters to us may have for other people, makes it im possible for us to succeed. “T can tell you, it’s better down there, under the cnc trees, than standing before the fire all day.” She spoke to them even of Eulalie as a good persor For since Eulalie’s death Francoise had completely fot gotten that she had loved her as little in her life tim 24 THE GUERMANTES WAY 3 she loved every one whose cupboard was bare, who as dying of hunger, and after that came, like a good yc nothing, thanks to the bounty of the rich, to “ put a airs”. It no longer pained her that Eulalie had so cilfully managed, Sunday after Sunday, to secure her trifle” from my aunt. As for the latter, Francoise never ft off singing her praises. “But it was at Combray, surely, that you used to be, ith a cousin of Madame?” asked the young footman. “Yes, with Mme. Octave—oh, a dear, good, holy roman, my poor friends, and a house where there was lways enough and to spare, and all of the very best, a ood woman, you may well say, who had no pity on the artridges, or the pheasants, or anything; you might turn D five to dinner or six, it was never the meat that yas lacking, and of the first quality too, and white wine, nd red wine, and everything you could wish.” (Francoise sed the word “pity” in the sense given it by La sruyere.) “It was she that paid the damages, always, ven if the family stayed for months and years.” (This eflexion was not really a slur upon us, for Frangoise be- onged to an epoch when the word “damages” was not stricted to a legal use and meant simply expense.) “ Ah, (can tell you, people didn’t go empty away from that souse. As his reverence the Curé has told us, many’s the ime, if there ever was a woman who could count on going traight before the Throne of God, it was she. Poor Mladame, I can hear her saying now, in the little voice she tad: ‘You know, Francoise, I can eat nothing myself, out I want it all to be just as nice for the others as if I vould. They weren’t for her, the victuals, you may be juite sure. If you’d only seen her, she weighed no more 25 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST than a bag of cherries; there wasn’t that much of her She would never listen to a word I said, she would never send for the doctor. Ah, it wasn’t in that house that you'ld have to gobble down your dinner. She liked her servants to be fed properly. Here, it’s been just the same again to-day; we haven’t had time for so much as te break a crust of bread; everything goes like ducks and drakes.” What annoyed her more than anything were the rusk of pulled bread that my father used to eat. She wag convinced that he had them simply to give himself airs and to keep her “dancing”. “TI can tell you frankly,” the young footman assured her, “that I never saw the like” He said it as if he had seen everything, and as if in him the range of a millennial experience extended over al countries and their customs, among which was not any: where to be found a custom of eating pulled bread. “ Yes yes,” the butler muttered, “ but that will all be changed the men are going on strike in Canada, and the Ministe told Monsieur the other evening that he’s clearing twe hundred thousand francs out of it.” There was no note of censure in his tone, not that he was not himself entirely honest, but since he regarded all politicians as unsoun¢ the crime of peculation seemed to him less serious thar the pettiest larceny. He did not even stop to ask himsel whether he had heard this historic utterance aright, anc was not struck by the improbability that such a thing would have been admitted by the guilty party himself t( my father without my father’s immediately turning hin} out of the house. But the philosophy of Combray made i} impossible for Frangoise to expect that the strikes ir} Canada could have any repercussion on the use of pulled 26 THE GUERMANTES WAY read. “So long as the world goes round, look, there’ll e masters to keep us on the trot, and servants to do heir bidding.” In disproof of this theory of perpetual mo- ion, for the last quarter of an hour my mother (who srobably did not employ the same measures of time as ‘rancoise in reckoning the duration of the latter’s dinner) iad been saying: “What on earth can they be doing? They’ve been at east two hours at their dinner.” a“ _ And she rang timidly three or four times. Francoise, *her” footman, the butler heard the bell ring, not as a ummons to themselves, and with no thought of answer- ng it, but rather like the first sounds of the instruments yeing tuned when the next part of a concert is just going 10 begin, and one knows that there will be only a few minutes more of interval. And so, when the peals were repeated and became more urgent, our servants began ‘0 pay attention, and, judging that they had not much ame left and that the resumption of work was at hand, it a peal somewhat louder than the rest gave a collective sigh and went their several ways, the footman slipping Jownstairs to smoke a cigarette outside the door, Fran- soise, after a string of reflexions on ourselves, such as: “They’ve got the jumps to-day, surely,” going up to put ner things tidy in her attic, while the butler, having sup- plied himself first with note-paper from my bedroom, polished off the arrears of his private correspondence. _ Despite the apparent stiffness of their butler, Francoise had been in a position, from the first, to inform me that the Guermantes occupied their mansion by virtue not of an immemorial right but of a quite recent tenancy, and that the garden over which it looked on the side that I did 27 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST not know was quite small and just like all the gardens along the street; and I realised at length that there wert not to be seen there pit and gallows or fortified mill secret chamber, pillared dovecot, manorial bakehouse 0 tithe-barn, dungeon or drawbridge, or fixed bridge either for that matter, any more than toll-houses or pinnacles charters, muniments, ramparts or commemorative mounds But just as Elstir, when the bay of Balbec, losing its} mystery, had become for me simply a portion, inter] changeable with any other, of the total quantity of salt water distributed over the earth’s surface, had suddenly restored to it a personality of its own by telling me that it was the gulf of opal painted by Whistler in his “ Hari monies in Blue and Silver ”, so the name Guermantes hac seen perish under the strokes of Francoise’s hammer the last of the dwellings that had issued from its syllablesif when one day an old friend of my father said to us, speak. ing of the Duchess: “ She is the first lady in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; hers is the leading house in the Faubourgif Saint-German.” No doubt the most exclusive drawing-|f room, the leading house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain was little or nothing after all those other mansions of which in turn I had dreamed. And yet in this one too, (and it was to be the last of the series) there was some-if thing, however humble, quite apart from its material com- ponents, a secret differentiation. | And it became all the more essential that I should bel} able to explore in the drawing-room of Mme, de Guer-#f mantes, among her friends, the mystery of her name, since I did not find it in her person when I saw her leavell the house in the morning on foot, or in the afternoon inf her carriage. Once before, indeed, in the church at Com- 28 THE GUERMANTES WAY gray, she had appeared to me in the blinding flash of a ransfiguration, with cheeks irreducible to, impenetrable oy the colour of the name Guermantes and of afternoons on the banks of the Vivonne, taking the place of my shat- cered dream like a swan or willow into which has been changed a god or nymph, and which henceforward, sub- jected to natural laws, will glide over the water or be shaken by the wind. And yet, when that radiance had vanished, hardly had I lost sight of it before it formed itself again, like the green and rosy afterglow of sunset after the sweep of the oar that has broken it, and in the solitude of my thoughts the name had quickly appropri- ated to itself my impression of the face. But now, fre- guently, I saw her at her window, in the courtyard, in the street, and for myself at least if I did not succeed in inte- grating in her the name Guermantes, I cast the blame on the impotence of my mind to accomplish the whole act that I demanded of it; but she, our neighbour, she seemed to make the same error, nay more to make it without dis- comfiture, without any of my scruples, without even sus- pecting that it was an error. Thus Mme. de Guermantes shewed in her dresses the same anxiéty to follow the fashions as if, believing herself to have become simply a woman like all the rest, she had aspired to that elegance in her attire in which other ordinary women might equal and perhaps surpass her; I had seen her in the street aze admiringly at a well-dressed actress; and in the morning, before she sallied forth on foot, as if the opinion of the passers-by, whose vulgarity she accentuated by parading familiarly through their midst her inaccessible life, could be a tribunal competent to judge her, I would see her before the glass playing, with a conviction free 29 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST from all pretence or irony, with passion, with ill-humour, with conceit, like a queen who has consented to appear as a servant-girl in theatricals at court, this part, so un- worthy of her, of a fashionable woman; and in this mytho- logical oblivion of her natural grandeur, she looked to see whether her veil was hanging properly, smoothed her cuffs, straightened her cloak, as the celestial swan per-] forms all the movements natural to his animal species, keeps his eyes painted on either side of his beak without putting into them any glint of life, and darts suddenly after a bud or an umbrella, as a swan would, without re- membering that he is a god. But as the traveller, disap- pointed by the first appearance of a strange town, reminds himself that he will doubtless succeed in penetrating its charm if he visits its museums and galleries, so I assured myself that, had I been given the right of entry into Mme, de Guermantes’s house, were I one of her friends, were I to penetrate into her life, I should then know what, within its glowing orange-tawny envelope, her name did really, objectively enclose for other people, since, after all, my father’s friend had said that the Guermantes set was some- thing quite by itself in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The life which I supposed them to lead there flowed from a source so different from anything in my experience, and must, I felt, be so indissolubly associated with that particular house that I could not have imagined the pres- ence, at the Duchess’s parties, of people in whose com- pany I myself had already been, of people who really existed. For not being able suddenly to change their na- ture, they would have carried on conversations there of the sort that I knew; their partners would perhaps have stooped to reply to them in the same human speech; and, 30 THE GUERMANTES WAY in the course of an evening spent in the leading house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, there would have been mo- ments identical with moments that I had already lived. Which was impossible. It was thus that my mind was embarrassed by certain difficulties, and the Presence of Our Lord’s Body in the Host seemed to me no more ob- scure a mystery than this leading house in the Faubourg, situated here, on the right bank of the river, and so near that from my bed, in the morning, I could hear its carpets being beaten. But the line of demarcation that separated me from the Faubourg Saint-Germain seemed to me all the more real because it was purely ideal. I felt clearly that it was already part of the Faubourg, when I saw the Guermantes doormat, spread out beyond that intangible Equator, of which my mother had made bold to say, hav- ing like myself caught a glimpse of it one day when their |door stood open, that it was in a shocking state. For the rest, how could their dining-room, their dim gallery up- holstered in red plush, into which I could see sometimes from our kitchen window, have failed to possess in my eyes the mysterious charm of the Faubourg Saint-Ger- ‘main, to form part of it in an essential fashion, to be geographically situated within it, since to have been enter- tained to dinner in that room was to have gone into the Faubourg Saint-Germain, to have breathed its atmosphere, since the people who, before going to table, sat down by the side of Mme. de Guermantes on the leather-covered sofa in that gallery were all of the Faubourg Saint-Ger- main. No doubt elsewhere than in the Faubourg, at cer- tain parties, one might see now and then, majestically enthroned amid the vulgar herd of fashion, one of those ‘men who were mere names and varyingly assumed, when 31 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST one tried to form a picture of them, the aspect of a tours, nament or of a royal forest. But here, in the leading house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, in the drawing-room, in the dim gallery, there were only they. They were, wrought of precious materials, the columns that upheld the temple, Indeed for quiet family parties it was from among them only that Mme. de Guermantes might select her guests,| and in the dinners for twelve, gathered around the dazzling napery and plate, they were like the golden statues of the Apostles in the Sainte-Chapelle, symbolic, consecrative pil- lars before the Holy Table. As for the tiny strip of garden that stretched between high walls at the back of the house, where on summer evenings Mme. de Guermantes had) liqueurs and orangeade brought out after dinner, how could I not have felt that to sit there of an evening, be- tween nine and eleven, on its iron chairs—endowed with a magic as potent as the leathern sofa—without inhaling the breezes peculiar to the Faubourg Saint-Germain was as impossible as to take a siesta in the oasis of Figuig without thereby being necessarily in Africa. Only i imagi- nation and belief can differentiate from the rest certain objects, certain people, and can create an atmosphere, Alas, those picturesque sités, those natural accidents, those local curiosities, those works of art of the Faubourg Saint-#f Germain, never probably should I be permitted to set myf} feet among them. And I must content myself with a shiver of excitement as I sighted, from the deep sea (and without the least hope of ever landing there) like an out- standing minaret, like the first palm, like the first signs of some exotic industry or vegetation, the well-trodden doormat of its shore. But if the Hotel de Guermantes began for me at its 32 | THE GUERMANTES WAY all-door, its dependencies must be regarded as extending long way farther, according to the Duke, who, looking \ n all the other tenants as farmers, peasants, purchasers f forfeited estates, whose opinion was of no account, haved himself every morning in his nightshirt at the win- low, came down into the courtyard, according to the varmth or coldness of the day, in his shirt-sleeves, in "yjamas, in a plaid coat of startling colours, with a shaggy tap, in little light-coloured covert coats shorter than the ackets beneath, and made one of his grooms lead past lim at a trot some horse that he had just been buying. Vlore than once, indeed, the horse broke the window of ‘upien’s shop, whereupon Jupien, to the Duke’s indigna- ion, demanded compensation. “If it were only in con- ideration of all the good that Madame la Duchesse does n the house, here, and in the parish,” said M. de Guer- mantes, “it is an outrage on this fellow’s part to claim a venny from us.” But Jupien had stuck to his point, ap- varently not having the faintest idea what “gocd” the Duchess had ever done. And yet she did do good, but— ‘imce one cannot do good to everybody at once—the mem- wy of the benefits that we have heaped on one person is 1 valid reason for our abstaining from helping another, vhose discontent we thereby make all the stronger. From ther points of view than that of charity the quarter ap- yeared to the Duke—and this over a considerable area— 0 be only an extension of his courtyard, a longer track or his horses. After seeing how a new acquisition trotted ny itself he would have it harnessed and taken through ll the neighbouring streets, the groom running beside the atriage holding the reins, making it pass to and fro be- ore the Duke who stood on the pavement, erect, gigantic, I ae c REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST enormous in his vivid clothes, a cigar between his teeth, his head in the air, his eyeglass scrutinous, until the mo- ment when he sprang on to the box, drove the horse up and down for a little to try it, then set off with his neff turn-out to pick up his mistress in the Champs-Elysées, M. de Guermantes bade good day, before leaving the courtyard, to two couples who belonged more or less to his world; the first, some cousins of his who, like working- class parents, were never at home to look after their chil- dren, since every morning the wife went off to the Schola to study counterpoint and fugue, and the husband to his studio to carve wood and beat leather; and after them the Baron and Baronne de Norpois, always dressed in black, she like a pew-opener and he like a mute at a funeral, who emerged several times daily on their way to church, They were the nephew and niece of the old Ambassador who was our friend, and whom my father had, in fact, met at the foot of the staircase without realising from where he came; for my father supposed that so important a personage, one who had come in contact with the most / eminent men in Europe and was probably quite indifferent to the empty distinctions of rank, was hardly likely te frequent the society of these obscure, clerical and narrow: minded nobles. They had not been long in the place; Jupien, who had come out into the courtyard to say a word to the husband just as he was greeting M. de Guer- mantes, called him “M. Norpois,” not being certain o his name. “Monsieur Norpois, indeed! Oh, that really is good! Just wait a little! This individual will be calling you Com- rade Norpois next!” exclaimed M. de Guermantes, turn: ing to the Baron. He was at last able to vent his spleen 34 THE GUERMANTES WAY igainst Jupien who addressed him as.“ Monsieur,” in- tead of “ Monsieur le Duc.” _ One day when M. de Guermantes required some in- ormation upon a matter of which my father had pro- essional knowledge, he had introduced himself to him vith great courtesy. After that, he had often some neigh- yourly service to ask of my father and, as soon as he saw iim begin to come downstairs, his mind occupied with lis work and anxious to avoid any interruption, the Juke, leaving his stable-boys, would come up to him in he courtyard, straighten the collar of his great-coat, with he serviceable deftness inherited from a line of royal »ody-servants in days gone by, take him by the hand, and, olding it in his own, patting it even to prove to my father, vith a courtesan’s or courtier’s shamelessness, that he, he Duc de Guermantes, made no bargain about my ather’s right to the privilege of contact with the ducal cesh, lead him, so to speak, on leash, extremely annoyed nd thinking only how he might escape, through the car- iage entrance out into the street. He had given us a weeping bow one day when we had come in just as he as going out in the carriage with his wife; he was bound 9 have told her my name; but what likelihood was there f her remembering it, or my face either? And besides, that a feeble recommendation to be pointed out simply s being one of her tenants! Another, more valuable, yould have been my meeting the Duchess in the drawing- oom of Mme. de Villeparisis, who, as it happened, had 4st sent word by my grandmother that I was to go and 2e her, and, remembering that I had been intending to o in for literature, had added that I should meet several uthors there. But my father felt that I was still a little 35 | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | young to go into society, and as the state of my health continued to give him uneasiness he did not see the use of establishing precedents that would do me no good. : As one of Mme. de Guermantes’s footmen was in the habit of talking to Francoise, I picked up the names of several of the houses which she frequented, but formed no impression of any of them; from the moment in which they were a part of her life, of that life which I saw only through the veil of her name, were they not inconceivable! To- -night there’s a big party with a Chinese shadow show at the Princesse de Parme’s,” said the footman, “but we shan’t be going, because at five o’clock Madame is taking the train to Chantilly, to spend a few days witk the Duc d’Aumale; but it’ll be the lady’s maid and vale that are going with her. I’m to stay here. She won’t be at all pleased, the Princesse de Parme won’t, that’s foul times already she’s written to Madame la Duchesse.” “Then you won’t be going down to Guermantes Castk this year?” “It’s the first time we shan’t be going there: it’s be cause of the Duke’s rheumatics, the doctor says he’s no to go there till the hot pipes are in, but we’ve been ther every year till now, right on to January. If the hot pipe aren't ready, perhaps Madame will go for a few days Cannes, to the Duchesse de Guise, but nothing’s settlec yet.” | “And to the theatre, do you go, sometimes? ” “We go now and then to the Opéra, usually on thi evenings when the Princesse de Parme has her box, that’ once a week; it seems it’s a fine show they give there plays, operas, everything. Madame refused to subscrib to it herself, but we go all the same to the boxes Madame’ 36 THE GUERMANTES WAY riends take, one one night, another another, often with he Princesse de Guermantes, the Duke’s cousin’s lady. he’s sister to the Duke of Bavaria. And so you've got to un upstairs again now, have you?” went on the footman, tho, albeit identified with the Guermantes, looked upon aasters in general as a political estate, a view which al- awed him to treat Francoise with as much respect as if he too were in service with a duchess. “ You enjoy good ealth, ma’am.” “Oh, if it wasn’t for these cursed legs of mine! On the lain I can still get along” (“on the plain” meant in the ourtyard or in the streets, where Francoise had no objec- on to walking, in other words “on a plane surface’) but it’s these stairs that do me in, devil take them. ood day to you, sir, see you again, perhaps, this evening.” She was all the more anxious to continue her conversa- ons with the footman after he mentioned to her that the ms of dukes often bore a princely title which they re- uned until their fathers were dead. Evidently the cult ' the nobility, blended with and accommodating itself to certain spirit of revolt against it, must, springing heredi- ily from the soil of France, be very strongly implanted ill in her people. For Francoise, to whom you might 'eak of the genius of Napoleon or of wireless telegraphy ithout succeeding in attracting her attention, and with- git her slackening for an instant the movements with Raich she was scraping the ashes from the grate or lay- g the table, if she were simply to be told these idiosyn- asies of nomenclature, and that the younger son of the luc de Guermantes was generally called Prince d’Oléron, ould at once exclaim: “ That’s fine, that is!” and stand ere dazed, as though in contemplation of a stained win- 37 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST dow in church. Francoise learned also from the Prince Agrigente’ valet, who had become friends with her by coming ofter to the house with notes for the Duchess, that he had beer hearing a great deal of talk in society about the marriags of the Marquis de Saint-Loup to Mlle. d’Ambresac, anc that it was practically settled. That villa, that opera-box, into which Mme. de Gued mantes transfused the current of her life, must, it seeme¢ to me, be places no less fairylike than her home. Th names of Guise, of Parme, of Guermantes-Baviere, dif ferentiated from all possible others the holiday places t which the Duchess resorted, the daily festivities which thi track of her bowling wheels bound, as with ribbons, to he mansion. If they told me that in those holidays, in thos festivities, consisted serially the life of Mme. de Gue mantes, they brought no further light to bear on it. Eac of them gave to the life of the Duchess a different deter mination, but succeeded only in changing the mystery o it, without allowing to escape any of its own myster which simply floated, protected by a covering, enclose in a bell, through the tide of the life of all the world. Thj Duchess might take her luncheon on the shore of th Mediterranean at Carnival time, but, in the villa of Mme de Guise, where the queen of Parisian society was nothin} more, in her white linen dress, among numberless prin} cesses, than a guest like any of the rest, and on that ac count more moving still to me, more herself by bein thus made new, like a star of the ballet who in the fan tastic course of a figure takes the place of each of he humbler sisters in succession; she might look at Chine shadow shows, but at a party given by the Princesse d 38 THE GUERMANTES WAY arme, listen to tragedy or opera, but from the box of ae Princesse de Guermantes. As we localise in the body of a person all the poten- falities of that person’s life, our recollections of the people e knows and has just left or is on his way to meet, if, aving learned from Frangoise that Mme. de Guermantes as going on foot to luncheon with the Princesse de arme, I saw her, about midday, emerge from her house .a gown of flesh coloured satin over which her face was ‘the same shade, like a cloud that rises above the setting in, it was all the pleasures of the Faubourg Saint-Ger- ain that I saw before me, contained in that small com- ass, as in a shell, between its twin valves that glowed ith roseate nacre. ‘My father had a friend at the Ministry, one A. J. foreau, who, to distinguish him from the other Moreaus, vok care always to prefix both initials to his name, with 1e result that people called him, for short, “A. J.” Well, mehow or other, this A. J. found himself entitled to a all at the Opéra-Comique on a gala night; he sent the cket to my father, and as Berma, whom I had not been gain to see since my first disappointment, was to give 1act of Phédre, my grandmother persuaded my father 4 pass it on to me. 'To tell the truth, I attached no importance to this pos- bility of hearing Berma which, a few years earlier, had ‘unged me in such a state of agitation. And it was not ithout a sense of melancholy that I realised the fact of y indifference to what at one time I had put before ealth, comfort, everything. It was not that there had sen any slackening of my desire for an opportunity to mtemplate close at hand the precious particles of reality 39 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST of which my imagination caught a broken glimpse. But my imagination no longer placed these in the diction of 2 great actress; since my visits to Elstir, it was on certain tapestries, certain modern paintings that I had brought te bear the inner faith I had once had in this acting, in this tragic art of Berma; my faith, my desire, no longer coming forward to pay incessant worship to the diction, the att tudes of Berma, the counterpart that I possessed of them in my heart had gradually perished, like those other coun terparts of the dead in ancient Egypt which had to be fe¢ continually in order to maintain their originals in eterna life. This art had become a feeble, tawdry thing. No deep lying soul inhabited it any more. That evening, as, armed with the ticket my father hac received from his friend, I was climbing the grand stair case of the Opera, I saw in front of me a man whom | took at first for M. de Charlus, whose bearing he had: when he turned his head to ask some question of one o the staff I saw that I had been mistaken, but I had ne hesitation in placing the stranger in the same class 0 society, from the way not only in which he was dresse¢ but in which he spoke to the man who took the ticket and to the box-openers who were keeping him waiting For, apart from personal details of similarity, there wai still at this period between any smart and wealthy mai of that section of the nobility and any smart and wealthy man of the world of finance or “ big business” a strongh marked difference. Where one of the latter would hay thought he was giving proof of his exclusiveness by adopting a sharp, haughty tone in speaking to an inferiot the great gentleman, affable, pleasant, smiling, had th air of considering, practising an affectation of humilit 40 Rel WD ne eae THE GUERMANTES WAY nd patience, a pretence of being just one of the audience, Sa privilege of his good breeding. It is quite likely that, n seeing him thus Rereribik behind a smile overflowing vith good nature the barred threshold of the little world part which he carried in his person, more than one vealthy banker’s son, entering the theatre at that mo- rent, would have taken this great gentleman for a person f no importance if he had not remarked in him an aston- shing resemblance to the portrait that had recently ap- eared in the illustrated papers of a nephew of the Aus- jan Emperor, the Prince of Saxony, who happened to be 1 Paris at the time. I knew him to be a great friend of ae Guermantes. As I reached the attendant I heard ie Prince of Saxony (or his double) say with a smile: I don’t know the number; it was my cousin who told te I had only to ask for inet box.” He may well have been the Prince of Saxony; it was ethaps of the Duchesse de Guermantes (whom, in that rent, I should be able to watch in the process of living ye of those moments of her unimaginable life in her vusin’s box) that his eyes formed a mental picture when 2 referred to “ my cousin who told me I had only to ask her box,” so much so that that smiling gaze peculiar himself, those so simple words caressed my heart (far ore gently than would any abstract meditation) with e alternative feelers of a possible happiness and a vague stinction. Whatever he was, in uttering this sentence to € attendant he grafted upon a commonplace evening ‘My everyday life a potential outlet into a new world; passage to which he was directed after mentioning e word “box” and along which he now proceeded was dist and mildewed and seemed to lead to subaqueous 41 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST grottoes, to the mythical kingdom of the water-nymphs, I had before me a gentleman in evening dress who was walking away from me, but I kept playing upon and round him, as with a badly fitting reflector on a lamp, and without ever succeeding in making it actually coincide witl him, the idea that he was the Prince of Saxony and was on his way to join the Duchesse de Guermantes. And, for all that he was alone, that idea, external to himself, impalpable, immense, unstable as the shadow projected: by a magic lantern, seemed to precede and guide him like that deity, invisible to the rest of mankind, who stands beside the Greek warrior in the hour of battle. I took my seat, striving all the time to recapture ¢ line from Phédre which I could not quite remember. Ir the form in which I repeated it to myself it had not the right number of feet, but as I made no attempt to coun them, between its unwieldiness and a classical line o poetry it seemed as though no common measure coulc¢ exist. It would not have surprised me to learn that I mus subtract at least half a dozen syllables from that por tentous phrase to reduce it to alexandrine dimensions But suddenly I remembered it, the irremediable asperitie of an inhuman world vanished as if by magic; the syllable of the line at once filled up the requisite measure, wha there was in excess floated off with the ease, the dexterit of a bubble of air that rises to burst on the water’s brink And, after all, this excrescence with which I had beel struggling consisted of but a single foot. A certain number of orchestra stalls had been offerd for sale at the box office and bought, out of snobbishnes or curiosity, by such as wished to study the appearance @ people whom they might not have another opportunit 42 THE GUERMANTES WAY seeing at close quarters. And it was indeed a fragment their true social life, ordinarily kept secret, that one vuld examine here in public, for, the Princesse de Parme iving herself distributed among her friends the seats in alls, balconies and boxes, the house was like a drawing- yom in which everyone changed his place, went to sit sre or there wherever he caught sight of a woman whom knew. Next to me were some common people who, not know- g the regular subscribers, were anxious to shew that ey were capable of identifying them and named them oud. They went on to remark that these subscribers shaved there as though they were in their own drawing- »oms, meaning that they paid no attention to what was zing played. Which was the exact opposite of what did ippen. A budding genius who has taken a stall in order » hear Berma thinks only of not soiling his gloves, of not sturbing, of making friends with the neighbour whom 1ance has put beside him, of pursuing with an inter- ittent smile the fugitive—avoiding with apparent want ‘ politeness the intercepted gaze of a person of his ac- aaintance whom he has discovered in the audience and » whom, after a thousand indecisions, he makes up his ind to go and talk just as the three hammer-blows from ie stage, sounding before he has had time to reach his jend, force him to take flight, like the Hebrews in the ed Sea, through a heaving tide of spectators and ectatresses whom he has obliged to rise and whose resses he tears as he passes, or tramples on their boots. im the other hand it was because the society people sat t their boxes (behind the general terrace of the balcony, 3 in so many little drawing-rooms, the fourth walls of 43 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST which had been removed, or in so many little cafés, 1 which one might go for refreshment, without letting ones be intimidated by the mirrors in gilt frames or the re plush seats, in the Neapolitan style, of the establishment it was because they rested an indifferent hand on tl gilded shafts of the columns which upheld this temple | the lyric art, it was because they remained unmoved } the extravagant honours which seemed to be being pa them by a pair of carved figures which held out towar the boxes branches of palm and laurel, that they and th only would have had minds free to listen to the playg only they had had minds. At first there was nothing visible but vague shadows, |} which one suddenly peercleaaaee the gleam of a precio] stone which one cannot see—the phosphorescence of pair of famous eyes, or, like a medallion of Henri IV a dark background, the bent profile of the Duc d’Aumallf to whom an invisible lady was exclaiming “ Monseignei must allow me to take his coat,” to which the Prim replied, “Oh, come, come! Really, Madame d’Ambr sac,’ She took it, in spite of this vague prohibition, at was envied by all the rest her being thus honoured. But in the other boxes, everywhere almost, the whi deities who inhabited those sombre abodes had flown f shelter against their shadowy walls and remained i visible. Gradually, however, as the performance went 0 their vaguely human forms detached themselves, one t one, from the shades of night which they patterned, an raising themselves towards the light, allowed their se nude bodies to emerge, and rose, and stopped at the lim of their course, at the luminous, shaded surface on whit their brillant faces appeared behind the gaily breakir 44 THE GUERMANTES WAY oam of the feather fans they unfurled and lightly waved, yeneath their hyacinthine locks begemmed with pearls, which the flow of the tide seemed to have caught and drawn with it; this side of them, began the orchestra talls, abode of mortals for ever separated from the trans- yarent, shadowy realm to which, at points here and there, jerved as boundaries, on its brimming surface, the limpid, mirroring eyes of the water-nymphs. For the folding seats on its shore, the forms of the monsters in the stalls \were painted upon the surface of those eyes in simple obedience to the laws of optics and according to their ingle of incidence, as happens with those two sections of ‘xternal reality to which, knowing that they do not possess any soul, however rudimentary, that can be considered 4s analogous to our own, we should think ourselves mad jf we addressed a smile or a glance of recognition: namely, minerals and people to whom we have not been in- jroduced. Beyond this boundary, withdrawing from the ‘imit of their domain, the radiant daughters of the sea sept turning at every moment to smile up at the bearded jritons who clung to the anfractuosities of the cliff, or owards some aquatic. demi-god, whose head was a polished stone to which the tides had borne a smooth overing of seaweed, and his gaze a disc of rock crystal. (They leaned towards these creatures, offering them sweet- heats; sometimes the flood parted to admit a fresh Nereid who, belated, smiling, apologetic, had just floated into lossom out of the shadowy depths; then, the act ended, laving no further hope of hearing the melodious sounds yf earth which had drawn them to the surface, plunging »ack all in a moment the several sisters vanished into the light. But of all these retreats, to the thresholds of which 45 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST their mild desire to behold the works of man brought the curious goddesses who let none approach them, the most famous was the cube of semi-darkness known to the world as the stage box of the Princesse de Guermantes. Like a mighty goddess who presides from far aloft ovet the sports of lesser deities, the Princess had deliberately remained a little way back on a sofa placed sideways i | the box, red as a reef of coral, beside a big, glassy splask of reflexion which was probably a mirror and made one think of the section cut by a ray of sunlight, vertical, clear liquid, through the flashing crystal of the sea. At once plume and blossom, like certain subaqueous growths a great white flower, downy as the wing of a bird, fel from the brow of the Princess along one of her cheeks the curve of which it followed with a pliancy, coquettish amorous, alive, and seemed almost to enfold it like a rosy egg in the softness of a halcyon’s nest. Over her hair reaching in front to her eyebrows and caught back lowe: down at the level of her throat, was spread a net upot which those little white shells which are gathered on som) shore of the South Seas alternated with pearls, a marin mosaic barely emerging from the waves and at every moll ment plunged back again into a darkness in the depths off which even then a human presence was revealed by thi ubiquitous flashing of the Princess’s eyes. The beaut] which set her far above all the other fabulous daughters o | the dusk was not altogether materially and comprehen sively inscribed on her neck, her shoulders, her arms, hel} figure. But the exquisite, unfinished line of the last wa the exact starting point, the inevitable focus of invisibll] lines which the eye could not help prolonging, marvellou | lines, springing into life round the woman like the speci 46 THE GUERMANTES WAY rum of an ideal form projected upon the screen of larkness. ' “That’s the Princesse de Guermantes,” said my neigh- your to the gentleman beside her, taking care to begin he word “ Princesse” with a string of ‘P’s, to shew that . title like that was absurd. “She hasn’t been sparing vith her pearls. I’m sure, if I had as many as that, I vouldn’t make such a display of them; it doesn’t look at ill well, not to my mind.” | And yet, when they caught sight of the Princess, all ‘hose who were looking round to see who was in the vudience felt springing up for her in their hearts the right- ul throne of beauty. Indeed, with the Duchesse de uuxembourg, with Mme. de Morienval, with Mme. de jainte-Euverte, and any number of others, what enabled me to ety their faces would be the juxtaposition of ; big red nose to a hare-lip, or of a pair of wrinkled ‘heeks to a faint moustache. These features were never- theless sufficient in themselves to attract the eye, since having merely the conventional value of a written docu- ment they gave one to read a famous and impressive 1ame; but also they gave one, cumulatively, the idea that igliness had about it something aristocratic, and that it vas unnecessary that the face of a great lady, provided it was distinguished, should be beautiful as well. But like ertain artists who, instead of the letters of their names, ‘et at the foot of their canvas a form that is beautiful in tself, a butterfly, a lizard, a flower, so it was the form of . delicious face and figure that the Princess had put in he corner of her box, thereby shewing that beauty can ’e the noblest of signatures; for the presence there of Aime. de Guermantes-Baviere, who brought to the theatre 47 | if Hb ¥ REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST only such persons as at other times formed part of her intimate circle, was in the eyes of specialists in aristocracy the best possible certificate of the authenticity of the picture which her box presented, a sort of evocation of a scene in the ordinary private life of the Princess in her palaces in Munich and in Paris. | Our imagination being like a barrel organ out of order, which always plays some other tune than that shewn on its card, every time that I had heard any mention of the Princesse de Guermantes-Baviere, a recollection of certain sixteenth century masterpieces had begun singing in my brain. I was obliged to rid myself quickly of this associa. tion, now that I saw her engaged in offering crystallised fruit to a stout gentleman in a swallowtail coat. Certainly I was very far from the conclusion that she and her guests were mere human beings like the rest of the audience, I understood that what they were doing there was all only a game, and that as a prelude to the acts of their real life (of which, presumably, this was not where they spent the important part) they had arranged, in obedience to a ritual unknown to me, they were feigning to offer and decline sweetmeats, a gesture robbed of its ordinary sig: nificance and regulated beforehand like the step of @ dancer who alternately raises herself on her toes and circles about an upheld scarf. For all I knew, perhaps at the moment of offering him her sweetmeats the goddess was saying, with that note of irony in her voice (for ] saw her smile): “ Do have one, won’t you?” What mat tered that to me? I should have found a delicious refine: ment in the deliberate dryness, in the style of Mérimée of] Meilhac, of such words addressed by a goddess to al demi-god who, conscious himself what were the sublime 48 THE GUERMANTES WAY joughts which they both had in their minds, in reserve, oubtless, until the moment when they would begin again » live their true life, consenting to join in the game, rag answering with the same mysterious bitterness: Thanks; I should like a cherry.” And I should have stened to this dialogue with the same avidity as to a sene from Le Mari de la Débutante, where the absence f poetry, of lofty thoughts, things so familiar to me hich, I suppose, Meilhac could easily, had he chosen, ave put into it a thousand times over, seemed to me in self a refinement, a conventional refinement and there- wre all the more mysterious and instructive. “That fat fellow is the Marquis de Ganangay,” came f a knowing tone from the man next to me, who had not uite caught the name whispered in the row behind. |The Marquis de Palancy, his face bent downwards at 1e end of his long neck, his round bulging eye glued to ie glass of his monocle, was moving with a leisurely dis- lacement through the transparent shade and appeared 2 more to see the public in the stalls than a fish that rifts past, unconscious of the press of curious gazers, zhind the glass wall of an aquarium. Now and again he aused, a venerable, wheezing monument, and the audi- ice could not have told whether he was in pain, asleep, vimming, about to spawn, or merely taking breath. No re else aroused in me so much envy as he, on account his apparent familiarity with this box and the indif- rence with which he allowed the Princess to hold out 1 him her box of sweetmeats; throwing him, at the same me, a glance from her fine eyes, cut in a pair of diamonds hich at such moments wit and friendliness seemed to juefy, whereas, when they were at rest, reduced to he 49 D REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST their purely material beauty, to their mineral brilliane alone, if the least reflected flash disturbed them ever s§) slightly, they set the darkness ablaze with inhuma horizontal splendid fires. But now, because the act ¢ Phédre in which Berma was playing was due to start the Princess came to the front of the box; whereupor as if she herself were a theatrical production, in the zon of light which she traversed, I saw not only the colou but the material of her adornments change. And in thi box, dry now, emerging, a part no longer of the water realm, the Princess, ceasing to be a Nereid, appeared tu banned in white and blue like some marvellous tragi actress dressed for the part of Zaire, or perhaps of Oreos mane; finally, when she had taken her place in the fror row I saw that the soft halcyon’s nest which tenderl shielded the rosy nacre of her cheeks was—down) dazzling, velvety, an immense bird of paradise. But now my gaze was diverted from the Princesse ¢ Guermante’s box by a little woman who came in, il dressed, plain, her eyes ablaze with indignation, follow by two young men, and sat down a few places from m At length the curtain went up. I could not help beir saddened by the reflexion that there remained now f trace of my old disposition, at the period when, so as 1 miss nothing of the extraordinary phenomenon which would have gone to the ends of the earth to see, I ke my mind prepared, like the sensitive plates which astro omers take out to Africa, to the West Indies, to mali and record an exact observation of a comet or an eclips#f when I trembled for fear lest some cloud (a fit of | humour on the artist’s part or an incident in the audience should prevent the spectacle from presenting itself wil}; 50 THE GUERMANTES WAY he maximum of intensity; when I should not have be- veved that I was watching it in the most perfect condi- ions had I not gone to the very theatre which was con- ecrated to it like an altar, in which I then felt to be till a part of it, though an accessory part only, the fficials with their white carnations, appointed by her, he vaulted balcony covering a pit filled with a shabbily jressed crowd, the women selling programmes that had ‘er photograph, the chestnut trees in the square outside, ll those companions, those confidants of my impressions f those days which seemed to me to be inseparable from nem. Phédre, the “ Declaration Scene ”, Berma, had had nen for me a sort of absolute existence. Standing aloof om the world of current experience they existed by nemselves, I must go to meet them, I should penetrate that I could of them, and if I opened my eyes and soul ) their fullest extent I should still absorb but a very ttle of them. But how pleasant life seemed to me: the ‘iviality of the form of it that I myself was leading tattered nothing, no more than the time we spend on ressing, on getting ready to go out, since, transcending it, lere existed in an absolute form, good and difficult to pproach, impossible to possess in their entirety, those tore solid realities, Phédre and the way in which Berma ooke her part. Steeped in these dreams of perfection in ae dramatic art (a strong dose of which anyone who ad at that time subjected my mind to analysis at any ‘coment of the day or even the night would have been dle to prepare from it), I was like a battery that ac- imulates and stores up electricity. And a time had come hen, ill as I was, even if I had believed that I should of it, I should still have been compelled to go and 51 —— —— REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST hear Berma. But now, like a hill which from a distance seems a patch of azure sky, but, as we draw nearer, returns to its place in our ordinary field of vision, all this had left the world of the absolute and was no more than a thing like other things, of which I took cognisance because I was there, the actors: were people of the same substance as the people I knew, trying to speak in the best possible way these lines of Phedre, which themselves no longer formed a sublime and indi vidual essence, distinct from everything else, but wer simply more or less effective lines ready to slip back inte the vast corpus of French poetry, of which they were merely a part. I felt a discouragement that was all the more profound in that, if the object of my headstrong and active desire no longer existed, the same tendencies on the other hand, to indulge in a perpetual dream, whiel varied from year to year but led me always to sudder impulses, regardless of danger, still persisted. The day on which I rose from my bed of sickness and set out t see, in some country house or other, a picture by Elsti or a mediaeval tapestry, was so like the day on whiel I ought to have started for Venice, or that on which I di go to hear Berma, or start for Balbec, that I felt befor going that the immediate object of my sacrifice woul¢ after a little while, leave me cold, that then I might pas close by the place without stopping even to look at tha picture, those tapestries for which I would at this momen risk so many sleepless nights, so many hours of pain. discerned in the instability of its object the vanity of m effort, and at the same time its vastness, which I had ne before noticed, like a neurasthenic whose exhaustion W double by pointing out to him that he is exhausted. I 52 THE GUERMANTES WAY the mean time my musings gave a distinction to every- hing that had any connexion with them. And even in ay most carnal desires, magnetised always in a certain irection, concentrated about a single dream, I might have ecognised as their primary motive an idea, an idea for yhich I would have laid down my life, at the,innermost ore of which, as in my day dreams while I sat reading all fternoon in the garden at Combray, lay the thought of erfection. | Ino longer felt the same indulgence as on the former pcasion towards the deliberate expressions of affection or ager which I had then remarked in the delivery and estures of Aricie, Isméne and Hippolyte. It was not that ie players—they were the same, by the way—did not ull seek, with the same intelligent application, to impart pW a caressing inflexion, or a calculated ambiguity to Keir Voices, now a tragic amplitude, or a suppliant meek- ss to their movements. ‘Their ‘intonations bade the pice: “Be gentle, sing like a nightingale, caress and 100”; or else, “now wax furious,” and then hurled jemselves upon it, trying to carry it off with them in eir frenzied rush. But it, mutinous, independent of their iction, remained unalterably their natural voice with its aterial defects or charms, its everyday vulgarity or fectation, and thus presented a sum-total of acoustic or cial phenomena which the sentiment contained in the ues they were repeating was powerless to alter, Similarly the gestures of the players said to their arms, their garments: “ Be majestic.” But each of these un- bmissive members allowed to flaunt itself between sulder and elbow a biceps which knew nothing of the ft; they continued to express the triviality of everyday 53 “2 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST life and to bring into prominence, instead of fine shade of Racinian meaning, mere muscular attachments; and th draperies which they held up fell back again along vertica lines in which the natural law that governs falling bodie was challenged only by an insipid textile pliancy. At thi point the little woman who was sitting near me exclaimed “Not a“hand! Did you ever see such a get-up? She’ too old; she can’t play the part; she ought to have retire ages ago.” | Amid a sibilant protest from their neighbours the tw young men with her succeeded in making her keep quit and her fury raged now only in her eyes. This fury couk moreover, be prompted only by the thought of succes of fame, for Berma, who had earned so much money, we overwhelmed with debts. Since she was always makin business or social appointments which she was prevente from keeping, she had messengers flying with apologi along every street in Paris, and what with rooms in hote which she would never occupy engaged in advance, oceal of scent to bathe her dogs, heavy penalties for breachij of contract with all her managers, failing any more serioly expense and being not so voluptuous as Cleopatra, sl would have found the means of squandering on telegran - and jobmasters provinces and kingdoms. But the litt woman was an actress who had never tasted success, al had vowed a deadly hatred against Berma. The latter hi just come on to the stage. And then—oh, the miracle like those lessons which we laboured in vain to leai overnight, and find intact, got by heart, on waking } next morning, like, too, those faces of dead friends whi the impassioned efforts of our memory pursue witho recapturing them, and which, when we are no long 54 se THE GUERMANTES WAY hinking of them, are there before our eyes just as they vere in life—the talent of Berma, which had evaded me rhen I sought so greedily to seize its essential quality, cow, after these years of oblivion, in this hour of indif- erence, imposed itself, with all the force of a thing directly een, on my admiration. Formerly, in my ‘attempts to jolate. the talent, I deducted, so to speak, from what I eard the part itself, a part common to all the actresses rho appeared as Phédre, which I had myself studied be- orehand so that I might be capable of subtracting it, of sceiving in the strained residue only the talent ne Mme. verma. | But this talent which I sought to discover outside ae part itself was indissolubly one with it. So with a reat musician (it appears that this was the case with inteuil when he played the piano), his playing is that f so fine a pianist that one cannot even be certain yhether the performer is a pianist at all, since (not inter- osing all that mechanism of muscular effort, crowned ere and there with brilliant effects, all that spattering ht of notes in which at least the listener who does ot quite know where he is thinks that he can discern ent in its material, tangible objectivity) his playing is *come so transparent, so full of what he is interpreting, iat himself one no longer sees and he is nothing now but window opening upon a great work of art. The inten- ons which surrounded, like a majestic or delicate border, le voice and mimicry of Aricie, Isméne or Hippolyte I ad been able to distinguish, but Phédre had taken hers to herself, and my mind had not succeeded in wresting om her diction and attitudes, in apprehending in the Aserly simplicity of their unbroken surfaces those easures, those effects of which no sign emerged, so 55 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST 2 completely had they been absorbed. Berma’s voice, it which not one atom of lifeless matter refractory to th mind remained undissolved, did not allow any sign t be discernible around it of that overflow of tears whiel one could feel, because they had not been able to absort it in themselves, trickling over the marble voice of Aricu or Isméne, but had been brought to an exquisite perfec tion in each of its tiniest cells like the instrument of ¢ master violinist, in whom one means, when one says tha ‘his music has a fine sound, to praise not a physical peculi arity but a superiority of soul; and, as in the classica landscape where in the place of a vanished nymph ther is an inanimate waterspring, a clear and concrete inten tion had been transformed into a certain quality of tone strangely, appropriately, coldly limpid. Berma’s arms which the lines themselves, by the same dynamic fore that made the words issue from her lips, seemed to rais on to her bosom like leaves disturbed by a gush of water her attitude, on the stage, which she had gradually buil up, which she was to modify yet further, and which wa based upon reasonings of a different profundity from thos of which traces might be seen in the gestures of her fellow actors, but of reasonings that had lost their origing deliberation, and had melted into a sort of radiance i which they sent throbbing, round the person of th heroine, elements rich and complex, but which the fas cinated spectator took not as an artistic triumph but @ a natural gift; those white veils themselves, which, tenuot and liners seemed to be of a living aeistanee and t have been woven by the suffering, Heliaeecat half-Jar senist, around which they drew close like a frail, shrink ing chrysalis; all of them, voice, attitude, gestures, veil 56 t y om 4 a 4 oT : THE GUERMANTES WAY yere nothing more, round this embodiment of an idea, rhich a line of poetry is (an embodiment that, unlike ur human bodies, covers the soul not with an opaque creen which prevents us from seeing it, but with a puri- ved, a quickened garment through which the soul is dif- used and we discover it), than additional envelopes which astead of concealing shewed up in greater splendour the oul that had assimilated them to itself and had spread self through them, than layers of different substances, rown translucent, the interpolation of which has the effect nly of causing a richer refraction of the imprisoned, entral ray that pierces through them, and of making nore extensive, more precious and more fair the matter urified by fire in which it is enshrined. So Berma’s in- as uickened also by the breath of genius. My own impression, to tell the truth, though more Jeasant than on the earlier occasion, was not really dif- erent. Only, I no longer put it to the test of a pre- xistent, abstract and false idea of dramatic genius, and ‘understood now that dramatic genius was precisely this. t had just occurred to me that if I had not derived any leasure from my first hearing of Berma, it was because, s earlier still when I sant to meet Gilberte in the yhamps-Elysées, 1 had come to her with too strong a — esire. Between my two disappointments there was per-— aps not only this resemblance, but another more pro- gund. The impression given us by a person or a work or a rendering, for that matter) of marked individuality 3 peculiar to that BORER OF work. We have eas to . the ideas of “beauty ”, “ breadth of style”, « pathos ” nd so forth which we might, failing anything better! have 57 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST had the illusion of discovering in the commonplace shoy of a “correct” face or talent, but our critical spirit hai before it the insistent challenge of a form of which i _ possesses no intellectual equivalent, in which it must detec! _and isolate the unknown element. It hears a shrill sound ‘an oddly interrogative intonation. It asks itself: “Is tha good? Is what I am feeling just now admiration? Is tha richness of colouring, nobility, strength?” And what an Swers it again is a shrill voice, a curiously questionin tone, the despotic impression caused by a person whon one does not know, wholly material, in which there is m room left for “breadth of interpretation”. And for thi: reason it is the really beautiful works that, if we lister to them with sincerity, must disappoint us most keenly because in the storehouse of our ideas there is none tha corresponds to an individual impression. This was precisely what Berma’s acting shewed me This was what was meant by nobility, by intelligence o diction. Now I could appreciate the worth of a broa poetical, powerful interpretation, or rather it was to thi that those epithets were conventionally applied, but onh as we give the names of Mars, Venus, Saturn to planet which have no place in classical mythology. We feel ii one world, we think, we give names to things in another between the two we can establish a certain correspond \ ence, but not bridge the interval. It was quite narrow this interval, this fault that I had had to cross when, tha afternoon on which I went first to hear Berma, havin strained my ears to catch every word, I had found somi difficulty in correlating my ideas of “nobility of inter pretation”, of “originality”, and had broken out iy applause only after a moment of unconsciousness ant 58 THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘as if my applause sprang not from my actual impression ut was connected in some way with my preconceived -deas, with the pleasure that I found in saying to myself: At last I am listening to Berma.” And the difference ‘hat there is between a person, or a work of art which is narkedly individual and the idea of beauty, exists just 4s much between what they make us feel and the idea df love, or of admiration. Wherefore we fail to recognise them. I had found no pleasure i in listening to Berma ox nore than, earlier still, in seeing Gilberte). I had said to myself: “Well, I do not admire this.” But then I was ‘hinking only of mastering the secret of Berma’s acting, ‘was preoccupied with that alone, I was trying to open ny mind as wide as possible to receive all that her acting ‘ontained. I understood now that all this amounted to jothing more nor less than admiration. | ‘ This genius of which Berma’s rendering of the part vas only the revelation, was it indeed the genius of Racine and nothing more? HI thought so at first. I was soon to be undeceived when he curtain fell on the act from Phédre, amid enthusiastic ‘ecalls from the audience, through which the old actress, veside herself with rage, drawing her little body up to ’s full height, turning sideways in her seat, stiffened the auscles of her face and folded her arms on her bosom > shew that she was not joining the others in their pplause, and to make more noticeable a protest which » her appeared sensational though it passed unperceived. “he piece that followed was one of those novelties which it one time I had expected, since they were not famous, ') be inevitably trivial and of no general application, /evoid as they were of any existence outside the perform- ao . 4 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST ance that was being given of them at the moment. But I had not with them as with a classic the disappointment of seeing the infinity and eternity of a masterpiece occupy no more space or time than the width of the footlights and the length of a performance which would finish it as effectively as a piece written for the occasion. Besides, at every fresh passage which, I felt, had appealed to the audience and would one day be famous, in place of the fame which it was prevented from having won in th past I added that which it would enjoy in the future, by a mental process the converse of that which consists it imagining masterpieces on the day of their first thin per formance, when it seemed inconceivable that a title whicl no one had ever heard before could one day be set, bather in the same mellow light, beside those of the author? other works. And this part would be set one day in thi list of her finest impersonations, next to that of Phédre Not that in itself it was not destitute of all literary merit But Berma was as sublime in one as in the other. ; realised then that the work of the playwright was fo the actress no more than the material, the nature of whi¢) was comparatively unimportant, for the creation of he ES eg of interpretation, just as the great painte whom I had met at Balbec, Elstir, had found the inspire tion for two pictures of equal merit in a school buildin without any character and a cathedral which was in itse a work of art. And as the painter dissolves houses, cart people, in some broad effect of light which makes them a alike, so Berma spread out great sheets of terror or tende: ness over words that were all melted together in a comm mould, lowered or raised to one level, which a lesser arti would have carefully detached from one another. N 60 SSS me a = = THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘doubt each of them had an inflexion of its own, and Berma’s diction did not prevent one from catching the rhythm of the verse. Is it not already a first element of ‘ordered complexity, of beauty, when, on hearing a rhyme, that is to say something which is at once similar to and different from the preceding rhyme, which was prompted by it, but introduces the variety of a new idea, one is Be nscious of two systems overlapping each other, one antellectual, the other prosodic? But Berma at the same time made her words, her lines, her whole speeches even, flow into lakes of sound vaster than themselves, at the margins of which it was a joy to see them obliged to stop, to break off; thus it is that a poet takes pleasure in making hesitate for a moment at the rhyming point the ‘word which is about to spring forth, and a composer in mmerging the various words of his libretto in a single chythm which contradicts, captures and controls ahere Thus into the prose sentences of the modern playwright ‘as into the poetry of Racine Berma managed to introduce those vast images of grief, nobility, passion, which were ithe masterpieces of her own personal art, and in which she ‘could be recognised as, in the portraits which he has made of different sitters, we recognise a painter. | I had no longer any msices as on the former occasion, ito be able to arrest and perpetuate Berma’s attitudes, pthe fine colour effect which she gave for a moment only n a beam of limelight which at once faded never to re- appear, nor to make her repeat a single line a hundred Btimes over. I realised that my original desire had been #More exacting than the intentions of the poet, the actress, Bthe great decorative artist who supervised her produc- Btions, and that that charm which floated over a line as it 61 | i REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST Ma was spoken, those unstable poses perpetually transformed into others, those successive pictures were the transient result, the momentary object, the changing masterpiece which the art of the theatre undertook to create and which would perish were an attempt made to fix it for all time by a too much enraptured listener. I did not even make a resolution to come back another day and hear Berma again. I was satisfied with her; it was when I admired too keenly not to be dicsppeinted by the object of my admiration, whether that object were Gilberte or Berma, that I demanded in advance, of the impression to be received on the morrow, the pleasure that yesterday’s impression had refused to afford me. Without seeking to analyse the joy which I had begun now to feel, and might perhaps have been turning to some more profitable use,’ I said to myself, as in the old days I might have said to one of my schoolfellows: “Certainly, I put Berma first!” not without a confused feeling that Berma’s genius was not, perhaps, very accurately represented by this affirmation of my preference, or this award to her of a “first” place, whatever the peace of mind that it nisi incidentally restore to me. Just as the curtain was rising on this second play I looked up at Mme. de Guermantes’s box. The Princess was in the act—by a movement that called into being an exquisite line which my mind pursued into the void—of turning her head towards the back of the box; her party were all standing, and also turning towards the back, and between the double hedge which they thus formed, with all the assurance, the grandeur of the goddess that she was, but with a strange meekness which so late an arrival, making every one aie get up in the middle of the pete 62 THE GUERMANTES WAY ormance, blended with the white muslin in which she was ittired, just as an adroitly compounded air of simplicity, shyness and confusion tempered her triumphant smile, the DJuchesse de Guermantes, who had at that moment en- ered the box, came towards her cousin, made a profound obeisance to a young man with fair hair who was seated n the front row, and turning again towards the amphibian nonsters who were floating in the recesses of the cavern, save to these demi-gods of the Jockey Club—who at that noment, and among them all M. de Palancy in particular, vere the men whom I should most have liked to be—the amiliar “ good evening” of an old and intimate friend, m allusion to the daily sequence of her relations with hem during the last fifteen years. I felt the mystery, but ould not solve the riddle of that smiling gaze which she iddressed to her friends, in the azure brilliance with shich it glowed while she surrendered her hand to one ad then to another, a gaze which, could I have broken i its prism, analysed its crystallisation, might perhaps ave revealed to me the essential quality of the unknown orm of life which became apparent in it at that moment. “he Duc de Guermantes followed his wife, the flash of is monocle, the gleam of his teeth, the whiteness of his arnation or of his pleated shirt-front scattering, to make dom for their light, the darkness of his eyebrows, lips nd coat; with a wave of his outstretched hand which he t drop on to their shoulders, vertically, without moving is head, he commanded the reas monsters, who were laking way for him, to resume their. seats, and made a rofound bow to the fair young man. One would have ud that the Duchess had guessed that her cousin, of hom, it was rumoured, she was inclined to make fun 63 —= REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST for what she called her “ exaggerations ” (a name which, from her own point of view, so typically French and restrained, would naturally be applied to the poetry and enthusiasm of the Teuton), would be wearing this evenin one of those costumes in which the Duchess thought o| her as “dressed up”, and that she had decided to give her a lesson in good taste. Instead of the wonderfu downy plumage which, from the crown of the Princess’s head, fell and swept her throat, instead of her net o} shells and pearls, the Duchess wore in her hair only ¢ simple aigrette, which, rising above her arched nose anc level eyes, reminded one of the crest on the head of : bird. Her neck and shoulders emerged from a drift 0 snow-white muslin, against which fluttered a swansdow fan, but below this her gown, the bodice of which ha for its sole ornament innumerable spangles (either littl sticks and beads of metal, or possibly brilliants), moulde her figure with a precision that was positively Britisk But different as their two costumes were, after the Prin cess had given her cousin the chair in which she hersel had previously been sitting, they could be seen turnin to gaze at one another in taeda appreciation. Possibly a smile would curve the lips of Mme. de Guei mantes when next day she referred to the headdress, little too complicated, which the Princess had worn, bt certainly she would declare that it had been, all the sam quite lovely, and marvellously arranged; and the Princes whose own tastes found something a little cold, a littl austere, a little “tailor-made” in her cousin’s way ¢ dressing, would discover in this rigid sobriety an @} quisite refinement. Moreover the harmony that existe between them, the universal and vre-established graviti 64 eae Se THE GUERMANTES WAY jon exercised by their upbringing neutralised the contrasts aot only in their apparel but in their attitude. By those nvisible magnetic longitudes which the refinement of their manners traced between them the expansive nature of the Princess was stopped short, while on the other side the formal correctness of the Duchess allowed itself to be 'ttracted and relaxed, turned to sweetness and charm. \s, in the play which was now being performed, to realise ‘ow much personal poetry Berma extracted from it one jad only to entrust the part which she was playing, which ‘he alone could play, to no matter what other actress, so fe spectator who should raise his eyes to the balcony light see in two smaller boxes there how an “ arrange- ent” supposed to suggest that of the Princesse de Guer- hantes simply made the Baronne de Morienval appear centric, pretentious and ill-bred, while an effort, as fainstaking as it must have been costly, to imitate the fothes and style of the Duchesse de Guermantes only jade Mme. de Cambremer look like some provincial hoolgirl, mounted on wires, rigid, erect, dry, angular, pith a plume of raven’s feathers stuck vertically in her jur. Perhaps the proper place for this lady was not a Weatre in which it was only with the brightest stars of | e season that the boxes (even those in the highest tier, Baich from below seemed like great hampers brimming #th human flowers and fastened to the gallery on which Mey stood by the red cords of their plush-covered parti- fms) composed a panorama which deaths, scandals, ill- ‘#sses, quarrels would soon alter, but which this evening ®'s held motionless by attention, heat, giddiness, dust, artness or boredom, in that so to speak everlasting yment of unconscious waiting and calm torpor which, in i 65 E > poate REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST retrospect, seems always to have preceded the explosion of a bomb or the first flicker of a fire. | The explanation of Mme. de Cambremer’s presence on this occasion was that the Princesse de Parme, devoid of snobbishness as are most truly royal personages, and to make up for this devoured by a pride in and passion for charity which held an equal place in her heart with her taste for what she believed to be the Arts, had bestowed a few boxes here and there upon women like Mme. de Cambremer who were not numbered among the highest aristocratic society but with whom she was con: nected in various charitable undertakings. Mme. de Cam. bremer never took her eyes off the Duchesse and Prin’ cesse de Guermantes, which was all the simpler for he! since, not being actually acquainted with either, she coul not be suspected of angling for recognition. Inclusion i! the visiting lists of these two great ladies was nevertheles the goal towards which she had been marching for the las ten years with untiring patience. She had calculated the she might reach it, possibly, in five years more. But hay ing been smitten by a relentless malady, the inexorabl character of which—for she prided herself upon her mec ical knowledge—she thought she knew, she was afrai that she might not live so long. This evening she wi happy at least in the thought that all these women who she barely knew would see in her company a man wl was one of their own set, the young Marquis de Beause gent, Mme. d’Argencourt’s brother, who moved impa tially in both worlds and with whom the women of t second were greatly delighted to bedizen themselves f fore the eyes of those of the first. He was seated behi Mme. de Cambremer on a chair placed at an angle, 66 sae THE GUERMANTES WAY hat he might rake the other boxes with his glasses. He new everyone in the house, and, to greet his friends, vith the irresistible charm of his beautifully curved fig- re , and fine fair head, he half rose from his seat, stif- paing his body, a smile brightening his blue eyes, with a Jend of deference and detachment, a picture delicately agraved, in its rectangular frame, and placed at an angle > the wall, like one of those old prints which portray great nobleman in his courtly pride. He often accepted lese invitations to go with Mme. de Cambremer to the 4 In the theatre itself, and on their way out, in the bby, he stood gallantly by her side in the thick of the irong of more brilliant friends whom he saw about him, ad to whom he refrained from speaking, to avoid any wkwardness, just as though he had been in doubtful pmpany. If at such moments there swept by him the sincesse de Guermantes, lightfoot and fair as Diana, +ting trail behind her the folds of an incomparable cloak, thing after her every head and followed by every eye ‘nd, most of all, by Mme. de Cambremer’s), M. de sausergent would become absorbed in conversation with 3 companion, acknowledging the friendly and dazzling ule of the Princess only with constraint, under com- Ision, and with the well-bred reserve, the considerate hess of a person whose friendliness might at the omment have been inconvenient. Had not Mme. de Cambremer known already that the x belonged to the Princess, she could still have told Bit the Duchesse de Guermantes was the guest from — air of keener interest with which she was surveying » spectacle of stage and stalls, out of politeness to her ‘Bitess. But simultaneously with this centrifugal force, 67 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | an equal and opposite force generated by the same desiri to be sociable drew her attention back to her own attire her plume, her necklace, her bodice and also to that 0 the Princess, whose subject, whose slave her cousin seeme( thus to proclaim herself, come thither solely to see her ready to follow her elsewhere should it have taken th| fancy of the official occupant of the box to rise and leave and regarding as composed merely of strangers, wort looking at simply as curiosities, the rest of the house, 1 which, nevertheless, she numbered many friends to whos boxes she regularly repaired on other evenings and wit regard to whom she never failed on those occasions t demonstrate a similar loyalism, exclusive, conditional an hebdomadary. Mme. de Cambremer was surprised to St her there that evening. She knew that the Duchess wi staying on very late at Guermantes, and had supposed hr to be there still. But she had been told, also, that som times, when there was some special function in Paris whi she considered it worth her while to attend, Mme. de Gue mantes would order one of her carriages to be broug round as soon as she had taken tea with the guns, an as the sun was setting, start out at a spanking pa through the gathering darkness of the forest, then ov the high road, to join the train at Combray and so | in Paris the same evening. “ Perhaps she has come} from Guermantes on purpose to hear Berma,” thous Mme. de Cambremer, and marvelled at the thought. A she remembered having heard Swann say in that al biguous jargon which he used in common with M.. Charlus: “The Duchess is one of the noblest souls Paris, the cream of the most refined, the choicest societ) For myself, who derived from the names Guermant 68 : THE GUERMANTES WAY 3avaria and Condé what I imagined to be the life, the thoughts of the two cousins (I could no longer so ascribe heir faces, having seen them), I would rather have had heir opinion of Phédre than that of the greatest critic n the world. For in his I should have found merely in- ‘ellect, an intellect superior to my own but similar in dnd. But what the Duchesse and Princesse de Guer- nantes might think, an opinion which would have fur- tished me with an invaluable clue to the nature of these wo poetic creatures, I imagined with the aid of their 1ames, I endowed with an irrational charm, and, with he thirst, the longing of a fever-stricken wretch, what _ demanded that their opinion of Phédre should yield to ne was the charm of the summer afternoons that I had ‘pent in wandering along the Guermantes way. Mme. de Cambremer was trying to make out how xactly the cousins were dressed. For my own part, I 1ever doubted that their garments were peculiar to them- elves, not merely in the sense in which the livery with ved collar or blue facings had belonged once exclusively o the houses of Guermantes and Condé, but rather as § peculiar to a bird the plumage which, as well as being 1: heightening of its beauty, is an extension of its body. The toilet of these two ladies seemed to me like a naterialisation, snow-white or patterned with colour, of heir internal activity, and, like the gestures which I had een the Princesse de Guermantes make, with no doubt no my own mind that they corresponded to some idea atent in hers, the plumes which swept downward from ier brow, and her cousin’s glittering spangled bodice eemed each to have a special meaning, to be to one or he other lady an attribute which was hers and hers alone, 69 | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST the significance of which I would eagerly have learned; ; the bird of paradise seemed inseparable from its wear as her peacock is from Juno, and I did not believe that. any other woman could usurp that spangled bodice, any more than the fringed and flashing aegis of Minerva, And when I turned my eyes to their box, far more than on the ceiling of the theatre, painted with cold and life- less allegories, it was as though I had seen, thanks to a miraculous rending of the clouds that ordinarily veiled it, the Assembly of the Gods in the act of contemplating the spectacle of mankind, beneath a crimson canopy, in a clear lighted space, between two pillars of Heaven, I gazed on this brief transfiguration with a disturbance which was partly soothed by the feeling that I myself was unknown to these Immortals; the Duchess had in- deed seen me once with her husband, but could surely have kept no memory of that, and it gave me no pain that she found herself, owing to the place that she oc- cupied in the box, in a position to gaze down upon the nameless, collective madrepores of the public in the stalls, for I had the happy sense that my own personality had been dissolved in theirs, when, at the moment in which, by the force of certain optical laws, there must, I suppose, have come to paint itself on the impassive current of those blue eyes the blurred outline of the protozoon, devoid of any individual existence, which was myself, I saw a ray illumine them; the Duchess, goddess turned woman, and appearing in that moment a thousand times more lovely, raised, pointed in my direction the white: gloved hand which had been resting on the balustrade of the box, waved it at me in token of friendship; my gaze felt itself trapped in the spontaneous incandescenet 70 THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘of the flashing eyes of the Princess, who had uncon- ‘sciously set them ablaze merely by turning her head to see ‘who it might be that her cousin was thus greeting, while the Duchess, who had remembered me, showered upon me the sparkling and celestial torrent of her smile. And now every morning, long before the hour at which she would appear, I went by a devious course to post myself at the corner of the street along which she gen- erally came, and, when the moment of her arrival seemed imminent, strolled homewards with an air of being ab- ‘sorbed in something else, looking the other way and raising my eyes to her face as I drew level with her, but as though I had not in the least expected to see her. Indeed, for the first few mornings, so as to be sure of not missing her, I waited opposite the house. And every ‘ime that the carriage gate opened (letting out one after another so many people who were none of them she for whom I was waiting) its grinding rattle continued in my heart in a series of oscillations which it took me a long time to subdue. For never was devotee of a famous lactress whom he did not know, posting himself and ‘atrolling the pavement outside the stage door, never was angry or idolatrous crowd, gathered to insult or to carry in triumph through the streets the condemned assassin ‘or the national hero whom it believes to be on the point of coming whenever a sound is heard from the inside of the prison or the palace, never were thése so stirred by sheir emotion as I was, awaiting the emergence of this sreat lady who in her simple attire was able, by the grace of her movements (quite different from the gait she affected on entering a drawing-room or a box), to make of her morning walk—and for me there was no one in 71 | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST the world but herself out walking—a whole poem of elegant refinement and the finest ornament, the most) curious flower of the season. But after the third day, so that the porter should not discover my stratagem, I betook myself much farther afield, to some point upon) the Duchess’s usual route. Often before that evening at the theatre I had made similar little excursions before luncheon when the weather was fine; if it had been rain- ing, at the first gleam of sunshine I would hasten down- stairs to take a turn, and if, suddenly, coming towards me, on the still wet pavement changed by the sun into a golden lacquer, in the transformation scene of a cross= roads dusty with a grey mist which the sun tanned and gilded, I caught sight of a schoolgirl followed by her governess or of a dairy-maid with her white sleeves, I stood motionless, my hand pressed to my heart which was. already leaping towards an unexplored form of life; I tried to bear in mind the street, the time, the number of the door through which the girl (whom I followed some- times) had vanished and failed to reappear. Fortunately, the fleeting nature of these cherished images, which I promised myself that I would make an effort to see again, prevented them from fixing themselves with any vivid- ness in my memory. No matter, I was less sad now at the thought of my own ill health, of my never having summoned up courage to set to work, to begin a book, the world appeared to me now a pleasanter place to live in, life a more interesting experience now that I had learned that the streets of Paris, like the roads round Balbec, were aflower with those unknown beau- ties whom I had so often sought to evoke from the woods of Méséglise, each one of whom aroused a sensual 72 ie =a THE GUERMANTES WAY jonging which she alone appeared capable of assuaging. On coming home from the Opéra-Comique I had added or next morning to the list of those which for some days past I had been hoping to meet again the form of Mme. je Guermantes, tall, with her high-piled crown of silky, zolden hair; with the kindness promised me in the smile which she had directed at me from her cousin’s box. I would follow the course which Francoise had told me that he Duchess generally took, and I would try at the same ime, in the hope of meeting two girls whom I had seen 1 few days earlier, not to miss the break-up of their espective class and catechism. But in the mean time, ever ind again, the scintillating smile of Mme. de Guermantes, he pleasant sensation it had given me returned. And without exactly knowing what I was doing, I tried to ind a place for them (as a woman studies the possible effect on her dress of some set of jewelled buttons that aave just been given her) beside the romantic ideas vhich I had long held and which Albertine’s coldness, 3iséle’s premature departure, and before them my delib- wrate and too long sustained separation from Gilberte aad set free (the Hea for instance of being loved by a voman, of having a life in common with Hen next, it aad Been the image of one or other of the two girls seen n the street that I brought into relation with those ideas, ‘0 which immediately afterwards I was trying to nie ny memory of the Duchess. Compared with those ideas ny memory of Mme. de Guermantes at the Opéra-Co- nique was a very little thing, a tiny star twinkling beside she long tail of a blazing comet; moreover I had been juite familiar with the ideas rea before I came to know Mme. de Guermantes; my memory of her, on the con- 73 ) } h ) REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST trary, I possessed but imperfectly; every now and then it escaped me; it was during the hours when, from float- ing vaguely in my mind in the same way as the images of various other pretty women, it passed gradually into a unique and definite association—exclusive of every other feminine form—with those romantic ideas of so much longer standing than itself, it was during those few hours in which I remembered it most clearly that I ought to have taken steps to find out exactly what it was; but I did not then know the importance which it was to assume for me; it was pleasant merely as a first private meeting with Mme. de Guermantes inside myself, it was the first, the only accurate sketch, the only one taken from life, the only one that was really Mme. de Guer mantes; during the few hours in which I was fortunate enough to retain it without having the sense to pay it any attention, it must all the same have been charming; that memory, since it was always to it, and quite freely moreover, to that moment, without haste, without strain. without the slightest compulsion or anxiety, that my ideas of love returned; then, as gradually those ideas fixed it more definitely, it acquired from them a proportionately greater strength but itself became more vague; presently I could no longer recapture it; and in my dreams I prob- ably altered it completely, for whenever I saw Mme. de Guermantes I realised the difference—never twice, as it happened, the same—between what I had imagined an what I saw. And now every morning, certainly at the moment when Mme. de Guermantes emerged from her gateway at the top of the street I saw again her tall figure, her face with its bright eyes and crown of silken hair—all the things for which I was there waiting; but, 74 = es SS | THE GUERMANTES WAY pn the other hand, a minute or two later, when, having irst turned my eyes away so as to appear not to be waiting for this encounter which I had come out to seek, | raised them to look at the Duchess at the moment in which we converged, what I saw then were red patches ‘as to which I knew not whether they were due to the iresh air or to a faulty complexion) on a sullen face which with the curtest of nods, a long way removed from the affability of the Phédre evening, acknowledged my alute, which I addressed to her daily with an air of sur- prise, and which did not seem to please her. And yet, after a few days, during which the memory of the two sirls fought against heavy odds for the mastery of my amorous feelings against that of Mme. de Guermantes, ‘t was in the end the latter which, as though of its own iccord, generally prevailed while its competitors with- lrew; it was to it that I finally found myself, deliberately preover; and as though by preference and for my own sleasure, to have transferred all my thoughts of love. I aad ceased to dream of the little girls coming from their patechism, or of a certain dairy-maid; and yet I had also ost all hope of encountering in the street what I had come out to seek, either the affection promised to me, at the sheatre, in a smile, or the profile, the bright face beneath (ts pile of golden hair which were so only when seen from vfar. Now I should not even have been able to say what Mime. de Guermantes was like, by what I recognised her, jor every day, in the picture which she presented as a whole, the face was different, as were the dress and the lat. _ Why did I one morning, when I saw bearing down on me beneath a violet Hors a sweet, smooth face whose 75 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST charms were symmetrically arranged about a pair of blue eyes, a face in which the curve of the nose seemed to have been absorbed, gauge from a joyous commotion in my bosom that I was not going to return home without having caught a glimpse of Mme. de Guermantes; and on the next feel the same disturbance, affect the same indif- ference, turn away my eyes in the same careless manner as on the day before, on the apparition, seen in profile as she crossed from a side street and crowned by a navy- blue toque, of a beak-like nose bounding a flushed cheek chequered with a piercing eye, like some Egyptian deity? Once it was not merely a woman with a bird’s beak that I saw but almost the bird itself; the outer garments, even the toque of Mme. de Guermantes were of fur, and since she thus left no cloth visible, she seemed naturally furred, like certain vultures whose thick, smooth, dusky, downy plumage suggests rather the skin of a wild beast. From the midst of this natural plumage, the tiny head arched out its beak and the two eyes on its surface were plercing- keen and blue. | 4 One day I had been pacing up and down the street for hours on end without a vestige of Mme. de Guermantes when suddenly, inside a pastry-cook’s shop tucked in between two of the mansions of this aristocratic and ple- beian quarter, there appeared, took shape the vague and unfamiliar face of a fashionably dressed woman who was asking to see some little cakes, and, before I had had time to make her out, there shot forth at me like a light- ning flash, reaching me sooner than its accompaniment. of thunder, the glance of the Duchess; another time, having failed to meet her and hearing twelve strike, I: realised that it was not worth my while to wait for her. 76 : THE GUERMANTES WAY Jy longer, I was sorrowlully making my way home- vurds ; and, absorbed in my own disappointment, looking asently after and not seeing a carriage that had over- tken me, I realised suddenly that the movement of her fad which I saw a lady make through the carriage win- w was meant for me, and that this lady, whose features, laxed and pale, or it might equally be tense and vivid, mposed, beneath a round hat which nestled at the feat Ca towering plume, the face of a stranger whom I had ‘pposed that I did not know, was Mme. de Guermantes, | whom I had let myself be greeted without so much 2 acknowledging her bow. And sometimes I came upon |r as I entered the gate, standing outside the lodge where te detestable porter whose scrutinous eye I loathed and ceaded was in the act of making her a profound obeisance ‘id also, no doubt, his daily report. For the entire staff ¢ the Guermantes household, hidden behind the window (rtains, were trembling as they watched a conversation ‘hich they were unable to overhear, but which meant , they very well knew that one or other of them would (rtainly have his “day out” stopped by the Duchess to ‘hom this Cerberus was betraying him. In view of the thole series of different faces which Mme. Guermantes ‘splayed thus one after another, faces that occupied a lative and varying extent, contracted one day, vast the xt, in her person and attire as a whole, my love was ot attached to any one of those changeable and ever- uanging elements of flesh and fabric which replaced one Aother as day followed day, and which she could modify, ould almost entirely reconstruct without altering my ‘sturbance because beneath them, beneath the new collar ad the strange cheek, I felt that it was still Mme. de | 77 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST Guermantes. What I loved was the invisible person wh set all this outward show in motion, her whose hostili so distressed me, whose approach set me trembling, who. life I would fain have made my own and driven out of. her friends. She might flaunt a blue feather or shew) fiery cheek without her actions’ losing their importan| for me. i) I should not myself have felt that Mme. de Guermant!| was tired of meeting me day after day, had I not learn¢ it indirectly by reading it on the face, stiff with coldnes disapproval and pity which Francoise shewed when s}) was helping me to get ready for these morning walk The moment I asked her for my outdoor things I fe| a contrary wind arise in her worn and battered feature I made no attempt to win her confidence, for I kne that I should not succeed. She had, for at once discoverit any unpleasant thing that might have happened to m parents or myself, a power the nature of which I hay never been able to fathom. Perhaps it was not supe: natural, but was to be explained by sources of informs tion that were open to her alone: as it may happen thi the news which often reaches a savage tribe several day before the post has brought it to the European color has really been transmitted to them not by telepathy b from hill-top to hill-top by a chain of beacon fires. §| in the particular instance of my morning walks, possibl Mme. de Guermantes’s servants had heard their mistre say how tired she was of running into me every da without fail wherever she went, and had repeated he remarks to Francoise. My parents might, it is true, hay attached some servant other than Francoise to my perso still I should have been no better off. F rancgoise was i 78. Tee a THE GUERMANTES WAY vense less of a servant than the others. In her way of ling things, of being kind and pitiful, hard and distant, yerior and narrow, of combining a white skin with red ads she was still the village maiden whose parents 4 had “a place of their own” but having come to grief d been obliged to put her into service. Her presence your household was the country air, the social life of a im of fifty years ago waited to us by a sort of reversal tthe normal order of travel whereby it is the place that mes to visit the person. As the glass cases in a local iseum are filled with specimens of the curious handi- tk which the peasants still carve or embroider or atever it may be in certain parts of the country, so ¢ flat in Paris was decorated with the words of Fran- se, inspired by a traditional local sentiment and gov- ied by extremely ancient laws. And she could in Paris id her way back as though by clues of coloured thread ‘the songbirds and cherry trees of her childhood, to hr mother’s deathbed, which she still vividly saw. But spite of all this wealth of background, once she had sme to Paris and had entered our service she had ac- yired—as, obviously, anyone else coming there in her bce would have acquired—the ideas, the system of inter- fetation used by the servants on the other floors, com- rnsating for the respect which she was obliged to shew bus by repeating the rude words that the cook on the farth floor had used to her mistress, with a servile Zatification so intense that, for the first time in our lives, ling a sort of solidarity between ourselves and the i occupant of the fourth floor flat, we said to irselves that possibly we too were “employers” after :. This alteration in Francoise’s character was perhaps 79 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST inevitable. Certain forms of existence are so abnorn that they are bound to produce certain characteris faults; such was the life led by the King at Versail; among his courtiers, a life as strange as that of a Phara| or a Doge—and, far more even than his, the life of |; courtiers. The life led by our servants is probably | an even more monstrous abnormality, which only $} familiarity can prevent us from seeing. But it was acl. ally in details more intimate still that I should have be} obliged, if I had dismissed Francoise, to keep the sai servant. For various others might, in years to come, ent my service; already furnished with the defects comm} to all servants, they underwent nevertheless a rapid tray formation with me. As, in the rules of tactics, an attat in one sector compels a counter-attack in another, so} not to be hurt by the asperities of my nature, all of thi effected in their own an identical resilience, always | the same points, and to make up for this took advante} of the gaps in my line to thrust out advanced posts. ‘f these gaps I knew nothing, any more than of the saliei to which they gave rise, precisely because they were ga But my servants, by gradually becoming spoiled, taugt me of their existence. It was from the defects which th invariably acquired that I learned what were my ol natural and invariable shortcomings; their charact offered me a sort of negative plate of my own. We hi always laughed, my mother and I, at Mme. Sazerat, w) used, in speaking of her servants, expressions like “1 lower orders ” or “ the servant class ”. But I am bound: admit that what made it useless to think of replaciz Francoise by anyone else was that her successor wotl inevitably have belonged just as much to the race! 80 THE GUERMANTES WAY (rvants in general and to the class of my servants in irticular. ‘To return to Frangoise, I never in my life experienced iy humiliation without having seen beforehand on her {ce a store of condolences prepared and waiting; and ithen in my anger at the thought of being pitied by her Itried to pretend that on the contrary I had scored a dstinct success, my lies broke feebly on the wall of her rspectful but obvious unbelief and the consciousness that se enjoyed of her own infallibility. For she knew the tith. She refrained from uttering it, and made only a sght movement with her lips as if she still had her mouth fl and was finishing a tasty morsel. She refrained from L ering it, or so at least I long believed, for at that time [still supposed that it was by means of words that one ¢mmunicated the truth to others. Indeed the words that fople used to me recorded their meaning so unalterably ¢ the sensitive plate of my mind that I could no more ae it to be possible that anyone who had professed t' love me did not love me than Francoise herself could ive doubted when she had read it in a newspaper that sne clergyman or gentleman was prepared, on receipt ca stamped envelope, to furnish us free of charge with i infallible remedy for every known complaint or with > means of multiplying our income an hundredfold. (, on the other hand, our doctor were to prescribe for it the simplest ointment to cure a cold in the head, 2, so stubborn to endure the keenest suffering, would nplain bitterly of what she had been made to sniff, isting that it tickled her nose and that life was not rth living.) But she was the first person to prove to : by her example (which I was not to understand until, I 81 F REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST long afterwards, when it was given me afresh and to n greater discomfort, as will be found in the later volum of this work, by a person who was dearer to me thi Francoise) that the truth has no need to be uttered be made apparent, and that one may perhaps gather with more certainty, without waiting for words, withe even bothering one’s head about them, from a thousai outward signs, even from certain invisible phenomer analogous in the sphere of human character to what nature are atmospheric changes. I might perhaps ha suspected this, since to myself at that time it frequent occurred that I said things in which there was no vesti of truth, while I made the real truth plain by all manr of involuntary confidences expressed by my body and my actions (which were at once interpreted by Fra soise); I ought perhaps to have suspected it, but to do I should first have had to be conscious that I myself w occasionally untruthful and dishonest. Now untruthf ness and dishonesty were with me, as with most peop called into being in so immediate, so contingent a fashic and in self-defence, by some particular interest, thatr mind, fixed on some lofty ideal, allowed my character, the darkness below, to set about those urgent, sort tasks, and did not look down to observe them. Wh Francoise, in the evening, was polite to me, and ask my permission before sitting down in my room, it see as though her face became transparent and I could: the goodness and honesty that lay beneath. But Jupi who had lapses into indiscretion of which I learned o1 later, revealed afterwards that she had told him that was not worth the price of a rope to hang me, and tl I had tried to insult her in every possible Way. Thi 82 THE GUERMANTES WAY ds of Jupien set up at once before my eyes, in new d strange colours, a print of the picture of my relations th Francoise so different from that on which I used to e letting my eyes rest, and in which, without the least ssibility of doubt, Francoise adored me and lost no op- rtunity of singing my praises, that I realised that it not only the material world that is different from the yect in which we see it; that all reality is perhaps wally dissimilar from what we think ourselves to be ectly perceiving; that the trees, the sun and the sky yuld not be the same as what we see if they were orehended by creatures having eyes differently con- tuted from ours, or, better still, endowed for that pur- sé with organs other than eyes which would furnish ,es and sky and sun with equivalents, though not visual. wever that might be, this sudden outlet which Jupien yew open for me upon the real world appalled me. So , it was only Francoise that was revealed, and of her varely thought. Was it the same with all one’s social ations? And in what depths of despair might this not ne day plunge me, if it were the same with love? That s the future’s secret. For the present only Francoise s concerned. Did she sincerely believe what she had d to Jupien? Had she said it to embroil Jupien with possibly so that we should not appoint Jupien’s girl ther successor? At any rate I realised the impossibility obtaining any direct and certain knowledge of whether ingoise loved or lothed me. And thus it was she who t gave me the idea that a person does not (as I had | igined) stand motionless and clear before our eyes h his merits, his defects, his plans, his intentions with 83 ard to ourself exposed on his surface, like a garden |. REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST , at which, with all its borders spread out before us, y gaze through a railing, but is a shadow which we Cc never succeed in penetrating, of which there can be 1 such thing as direct knowledge, with respect to whi we form enirries: beliefs, based upon his words ar sometimes upon his actions, though neither words ni actions can give us anything but inadequate and as | proves contradictory information—a shadow behind wih we can alternately imagine, with equal justification, th) there burns the flame of hatred and of love. 1 I was genuinely in love with Mme. de Guermanti The greatest happiness that I could have asked of Gi would have been that He should overwhelm her und; every imaginable calamity, and that ruined, despise, stripped of all the privileges that divided her from Tr having no longer any home of her own or people wi would condescend to speak to her, she should come } me for refuge. I imagined her doing so. And indeed 4 those evenings when some change in the atmosphere ! in my own condition brought to the surface of my co sciousness some forgotten scroll on which were record impressions of other days, instead of profiting by t refreshing strength that had been generated in me, instel of employing it to decipher in my own mind though at last to work, I preferred to relate aloud, to plan ¢ in the third person, with a flow of invention as uselé as was my declamation of it, a whole novel cramm with adventure, in which the Duchess, fallen upon m: fortune, came to implore assistance from me—me who hi become, by a converse change of circumstances, rich al powerful. And when I had let myself thus for hours 1 84 THE GUERMANTES WAY nd imagine the circumstances, rehearse the sentences rith which I should welcome the Duchess beneath my of, the situation remained unaltered; I had, alas, in eality, chosen to love the very woman who, in her own erson, combined perhaps the greatest possible number of ifferent advantages; in whose eyes, accordingly, I could ot hope, myself, ever to cut any figure; for she was as ich as the richest commoner—and noble also; without sckoning that personal charm which set her at the pin- acle of fashion, made her among the rest a sort of queen. I felt that I was annoying her by crossing her path ) this way every morning; but even if I had had the durage to refrain, for two or three days consecutively, 7om doing so, perhaps that abstention, which would have epresented so great a sacrifice on my part, Mme. de juermantes would not have noticed, or would have set it own to some obstacle beyond my control. And indeed -could not have succeeded in making myself cease to rack her down except by arranging that it should be possible for me to do so, for the need incessantly viving in me to meet her, to be for a moment the object { her attention, the person to whom her bow was ad- ressed, was stronger than my fear of arousing her dis- leasure. I should have had to go away for some time; ad for that I had not the heart. I did think of it tore than once. I would then tell Francoise to pack my oxes, and immediately afterwards to unpack them. And $ the spirit of imitation, the desire not to appear behind ae times, alters the most natural and most positive form £ oneself, Francoise, borrowing the expression from er daughter’s vocabulary, used to remark that I was dippy ”. She did not approve of this; she said that I 85 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST was always “balancing”, for she made use, when sh was not aspiring to rival the moderns, of the language ¢ Saint-Simon. It is true that she liked it still less whe I spoke to her as master to servant. She knew that th was not natural to me, and did not suit me, a conditi which she rendered in words as “ where there isn’t a will’ I should never have had the heart to leave Paris excey in a direction that would bring me closer to Mme. d Guermantes. This was by no means an impossibilit Should I not indeed find myself nearer to her than. was in the morning, in the street, solitary, abashed, fee ing that not a single one of the thoughts which I shoul have liked to convey to her ever reached her, in th; weary patrolling up and down of walks which might t continued, day after day, for ever without the slighte: advantage to myself, if I were to go miles away frot Mme. de Guermantes, but go to some one of her a quaintance, some one whom she knew to be particuk in the choice of his friends and who would appreciate m good qualities, would be able to speak to her about m and if not to obtain it from her at least to make h know what I wanted, some one by means of whom, in an event, simply because I should discuss with him whethi or not it would be possible for him to convey this ¢ that message to her, I should give to my solitary an silent meditations a new form, spoken, active, whic would seem an advance, almost a realisation. What sl did during the mysterious daily life of the “ Guermantes that she was—this was the constant object of my thought and to break through the mystery, even by indirect mean as with a lever, by employing the services of a person * whom were not forbidden the town house of the Duches 86 THE GUERMANTES WAY ver parties, unrestricted conversation with her, would not hat be a contact more distant but at the same time aore effective than my contemplation of her every morn- ng in the street? The friendship, the admiration that Saint-Loup felt or me seemed to me undeserved and had hitherto left 1e unmoved. All at once I attached a value to them, I oe have liked him to disclose them to Mme. de Guer- iantes, I was quite prepared even to ask him to do so. ‘or when we are in love, all the trifling little privileges ‘at we enjoy we would like to be able to divulge to the voman we love, as people who have been disinherited nd bores of other kinds do to us in every-day life. We re distressed by her ignorance of them; we seek con- lation in the thought that just because they are never isible she has perhaps added to the opinion which she tready had of us this possibility of further advantages jat must remain unknown. 'Saint-Loup had not for a long time been able to come ) Paris, whether, as he himself explained, on account of ‘8 military duties, or, as was more likely, on account of te trouble that he was having with his mistress, with ‘hom he had twice now been on the point of breaking off ‘lations. He had often told me what a pleasure it would * to him if I came to visit him at that garrison town, the ame of which, a couple of days after his leaving Balbec, ad caused me so much } joy when I had read it on the ere of the first letter I received from my friend. It as (not so far from Balbec as its wholly inland sur- sundings might have led one to think) one of those little ttified towns, aristocratic and military, set in a broad ‘panse of country over which on fine days there floats so 87 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST often into the distance a sort of intermittent haze of soun which—as a screen of poplars by its sinuosities outline the course of a river which one cannot see—indicates th movements of a regiment on parade that the very atmos phere of its streets, avenues and squares has been gradu ally tuned to a sort of perpetual vibration, musical. an martial, while the most ordinary note of cartwheel o tramway is prolonged in vague trumpet calls, indefinitel repeated, to the hallucinated ear, by the silence. It wa not too far away from Paris for me to be able, if I too the express, to return, join my mother and grandmothe and sleep in my own bed. As soon as I realised this troubled by a painful longing, I had too little will powe to decide not to return to Paris but rather to stay in thi town; but also too little to prevent a porter from carryin my luggage to a cab and not to adopt, as I walked behin him, the unburdened mind of a traveller who is lookin after his luggage and for whom no grandmother is wait ing anywhere at home, to get into the carriage with th complete detachment of a person who, having ceased t think of what it is that he wants, has the air of knowin what he wants, and to give the driver the address of th cavalry barracks. I thought that Saint-Loup might com to sleep that night at the hotel at which I should be sta ing, so as to make less painful for me the first shock contact with this strange town. One of the guard went t find him, and I waited at the barrack gate, before tha huge ship of stone, booming with the November wind, ou of which, every moment, for it was now six o'clock, me were emerging in pairs into the street, staggering as 1 they were coming ashore in some foreign port in whic they found themselves temporarily anchored. 88 THE GUERMANTES WAY | Saint-Loup appeared, moving like a whirlwind, his eye- ylass spinning in the air before him; I had not given my same, I was eager to enjoy his surprise and delight. “Oh! Nhat a bore!” he exclaimed, suddenly catching sight of ae, and blushing to the tips of his ears. “I have just had , week’s leave, and I shan’t be off duty again for another yeek,” _ And, preoccupied by the thought of my having to spend his first night alone, for he knew better than anyone ay bed-time agonies, which he had often remarked and sothed at Balbec, he broke off his lamentation to turn nd look at me, coax me with little smiles, with tender qough unsymmetrical glances, half of them coming di- ectly from his eye, the other half through his eyeglass, ut both sorts alike an allusion to the emotion that he alt on seeing me again, an allusion also to that important jatter which I did not always understand but which con- erned me now vitally, our friendship. | “I say! Where are you going to sleep? Really, I can’t pcommend the hotel where we mess; it is next to the Ex- ibition ground, where there’s a show just starting; ou'll find it beastly crowded. No, you’ld better go to the Otel de Flandre; it is a little eighteenth-century palace ith old tapestries. It ‘makes’ quite an ‘old world ssidence 47? Saint-Loup employed in every ‘connexion the word makes” for “has the air of ”, because the spoken lan- lage, like the written, feels from time to time the need _ these alterations in the meanings of words, these re- 1ements of expression. And just as journalists often have ot the least idea from what school of literature come the turns of speech” that they borrow, so the vocabulary, 89 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST the very diction of Saint-Loup were formed in imitation of three different aesthetes, none of whom he knew per sonally but whose way of speaking had been indirecth instilled into him. “ Besides,” he concluded, “the hotel mean is more or less adapted to your supersensitiveness 0 hearing. You will have no neighbours. I quite see thati is a slender advantage, and as, after all, another visito may arrive to-morrow, it would not be worth your whil to choose that particular hotel with so precarious an objec in view. No, it is for its appeal to the eye that I recom mend it. The rooms are quite attractive, all the furnitur is old and comfortable; there is something reassuring abo that.” But to me, less of an artist than Saint-Loup, th pleasure that an attractive house could give was supe ficial, almost non-existent, and could not calm my growin anguish, as painful as that which I used to feel long ag at Combray when my mother did not come upstairs t say good night, or that which I felt on the evening of m arrival at Balbec in the room with the unnaturally hig ceiling, which smelt of flowering grasses. Saint-Loup rea all this in my fixed gaze. “A lot you care, though, about this charming palac my poor fellow; you’re quite pale; and here am I like great brute talking to you about tapestries which ye won’t have the heart to look at,-even. I know the roo they'll put you in; personally I find it most enlivening, b I can quite understand that it won’t have the same effe on you with your sensitive nature. You mustn’t think don’t understand; I don’t feel the same myself, but I ¢ put myself in your place.” | At that moment a serjeant who was exercising a hae on the square, entirely absorbed in making the anim 90 : THE GUERMANTES WAY imp, disregarding the salutes of passing troopers, but urling volleys of oaths at such as got in his way, turned ith a smile to Saint-Loup and, seeing that he had a friend ith him, saluted us. But his horse at once reared. Saint- oup flung himself at its head, caught it by the bridle, acceeded in quieting it and returned to my side. | “Yes,” he resumed; “I assure you that I fully under- fand; I feel for you as keenly as you do yourself. I am ‘retched,” he went on, laying his hand lovingly on my aoulder, “when I think that if I could have stayed with ou to-night, I might have been able, if we talked till t | ‘orning, to relieve you of a little of your unhappiness. I in lend you any number of books, but you won’t want to rad if you’re feeling like that. And I shan’t be able to st anyone else to take my duty here; I’ve been off now vice running because my girl came down to see me.” And he knitted his brows partly with vexation and also \ the effort to decide, like a doctor, what remedy he might 2st apply to my disease. “Run along and light the fire in my quarters,” he called )a trooper who passed us. “ Hurry up; get a move on!” After which he turned once more to me, and his eyeglass ad his peering, myopic gaze hinted an allusion to our reat friendship. ‘“ No! To see you here, in these barracks where I have bent so much time thinking about you, I can scarcely slieve my eyes. I must be dreaming. And how are you? ‘etter, I hope. You must tell me all about yourself pres- itly. We'll go up to my room; we mustn’t hang about too ng on the square, there’s the devil of a draught; I don’t el it now myself, but you aren’t accustomed to it, I’m ‘raid of your catching cold. And what about your work; gI REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST have you started yet? No? You are a quaint fellow! | i had your talent I’m sure I should be writing mornin) noon and night. It amuses you more to do nothing? Whi a pity it is that it’s the useless fellows like me who ar always ready to work, and the ones who could if the wanted to, won’t. There, and I’ve clean forgotten to as you how your grandmother is. Her Proudhons are in saj keeping. I never part from them.” | An officer, tall, handsome, majestic, emerged with slo} and solemn gait from the foot of a staircase. Saint-Lou saluted him and arrested the perpetual instability of hi body for the moment occupied in holding his hand agains the peak of his cap. But he had flung himself into th action with so much force, straightening himself with § sharp a movement, and, the salute ended, let his hand fa} with so abrupt a relaxation, altering all the positions ¢ shoulder, leg, and eyeglass, that this moment was one n¢ so much of immobility as of a throbbing tension in whic were neutralised the excessive movements which he ha just made and those on which he was about to embar] Meanwhile the officer, without coming any nearer us, caln benevolent, dignified, imperial, representing, in short th direct opposite of Saint-Loup, himself also, but withov haste, raised his hand to the peak of his cap. “I must just say a word to the Captain,” whispere Saint-Loup. “ Be a good fellow, and go and wait for m in my room. It’s the second on the right, on the thir floor; I’ll be with you in a minute.” | And setting off at the double, preceded by his eyeglas which fluttered in every direction, he made straight fc the slow and stately Captain whose horse had just bee brought round and who, before preparing to mount, we 92 THE GUERMANTES WAY vee orders with a studied nobility of gesture as in some storical painting, and as though he were setting forth { take part in some battle of the First Empire, whereas | was simply going to ride home, to the house which he jd taken for the period of his service at Donciéres, and wich stood in a Square that was named, as though in an nical anticipation of the arrival of this Napoleonid, laée de la République. I started to climb the staircase, yarly slipping on each of its nail-studded steps, catching impses of barrack-rooms, their bare walls edged with a uuble line of beds and kits. I was shewn Saint-Loup’s - I stood for a moment outside its closed door, for could hear some one stirring; he moved something, let {ll something else; [ felt that the room was not empty, tat there must be somebody there. But it was only the {:shly lighted fire beginning to burn. It could not keep qiet, it kept shifting its faggots about, and very clumsily. lzntered the room; it let one roll into the fender and set éother smoking. And even when it was not moving, like ¢. ill-bred person it made noises all the time, which, from te moment | saw the flames rising, revealed themselves {me as noises made by a fire, although if I had been on te other side of a wall I should have thought that they (me from some one who was blowing his nose and walk- iz about. I sat down in the room and waited. Liberty Lngings and old German stuffs of the eighteenth century lanaged to rid it of the smell that was exhaled by the rest the building, a coarse, insipid, mouldy smell like that /stale toast. It was here, in this charming room, that I uld have dined and slept with a calm and happy mind. int-Loup seemed almost to be present by reason of the xt-books which littered his table, between his photo- 93 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST graphs, among which I could make out my own and thi of the Duchesse de Guermantes, by the light of the fii which had at length grown accustomed to the grate, ani like an animal crouching in an ardent, noiseless, faithfi watchfulness, let fall only now and then a smoulderir log which crumbled into sparks, or licked with a tongy| of flame the sides of the chimney. I heard the tick « Saint-Loup’s watch, which could not be far away. Th tick changed its place every moment, for I could not s¢ the watch; it seemed to come from behind, from in fro} of me, from my right, from my left, sometimes to di away as though at a great distance. Suddenly I caug} sight of the watch on the table. Then I heard the ti in a fixed place from which it did not move again. Thi is to say, I thought I heard it at this place; I did not he; it there; I saw it there, for sounds have no position | space. Or rather we associate them with movements, af in that way they serve the purpose of warning us of tho} movements, of appearing to make them necessary a1 natural. Certainly it happens commonly enough that! sick man whose ears have been stopped with cotton-wg ceases to hear the noise of a fire such as was crackling | that moment in Saint-Loup’s fireplace, labouring } the formation of brands and cinders, which it then leé fall into the fender, nor would he hear the passage of t} tramway-cars whose music took its flight, at regular 1 tervals, over the Grand’place of Donciéres. Let the sit man then read a book, and the pages will turn silent’ before him, as though they were moved by the fingers I a god. The dull thunder of a bath which is being fill becomes thin, faint and distant as the twittering of bir in the sky. The withdrawal of sound, its dilution, ta? 94 THE GUERMANTES WAY Lh it all its power to hurt us; driven mad a moment ago 7 hammer-blows which seemed to be shattering the ceil- g above our head, it is with a quiet delight that we now ather in their sound, light, caressing, distant, like the jurmur of leaves playing by the roadside with the pass- ig breeze. We play games of patience with cards which je do not hear, until we imagine that we have not touched vem, that they are moving of their own accord, and, an- fipating our desire to play with them, have begun to play jth us. And in this connexion we may ask ourselves yhether, in the case of love (to which indeed we may add te love of life and the love of fame, since there are, it wpears, persons who are acquainted with these latter éntiments), we ought not to act like those who, when a wise disturbs them, instead of praying that it may cease, sop their ears; and, with them for our pattern, bring our étention, our defensive strength to bear on ourselves, give «rselves as an objective to capture not the “ other per- sn” with whom we are in love but our capacity for suf- tring at that person’s hands. To return to the problem of sounds, we have only to ticken the wads which close the aural passages, and they cnfine to a pianissimo the girl who has just been playing “boisterous tune overhead; if we go farther, and steep te wad in grease, at once the whole household must obey j despotic rule; its laws extend even beyond our portals. lanissimo is not enough; the wad instantly orders the ano to be shut, and the music lesson is abruptly ended; 2 gentleman who was walking up and down in the room love breaks off in the middle of his beat; the movement | Carriages and tramways is interrupted as though a vereign were expected to pass. And indeed this attenu- 95 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | ation of sounds sometimes disturbs our slumbers insted of guarding them. Only yesterday the incessant noise | our ears, by describing to us in a continuous narrative ¢ that was happening in the street and in the house, su ceeded at length in making us sleep, like a boring bool to-night, through the sheet of silence that is spread ov) our sleep a shock, louder than the rest, manages to mal itself heard, gentle as a sigh, unrelated to any other soun mysterious; and the call for an explanation which it emi, is sufficient to awaken us. Take away for a moment fro, the sick man the cotton-wool that has been stopping ears and in a flash the full daylight, the sun of sour dawns afresh, dazzling him, is born again in his univers in all haste returns the multitude of exiled sounds; y are present, as though it were the chanting of choir angels, at the resurrection of the voice. The empty stree are filled for a moment with the whirr of the swift, co: secutive wings of the singing tramway-cars. In the be- room itself, the sick man has created, not, like Promethei, fire, but the sound of fire. And when we increase * reduce the wads of cotton-wool, it is as though we we} pressing alternately one and the other of the two peds with which we have extended the resonant compass f the outer world. | Only there are also suppressions of sound which ae not temporary. The man who has grown completely def cannot even heat a pan of milk by his bedside, but | must keep an eye open to watch, on the tilted lid, i the white, arctic reflexion, like that of a coming sno: storm, which is the warning sign which he is wise to obt, by cutting off (as Our Lord bade the waves be still) t electric current; for already the swelling, jerkily climbi 96 THE GUERMANTES WAY gg of boiling milk-film is reaching its climax in a series f sidelong movements, has filled and set bellying the rooping sails with which the cream has skimmed its sur- ce, sends in a sudden storm a scud of pearly substance ying overboard—sails which the cutting off of the cur- int, if the electric storm is hushed in time, will fold back pon themselves and let fall with the ebbing tide, changed low to magnolia petals. But if the sick man should not be i uick enough in taking the necessary precautions, pres- atly, when his Aroeaee books and watch are seen barely merging from the milky tide, he will be obliged to call ne old nurse who, though he be himself an eminent tatesman or a famous writer, will tell him that he has ‘o more sense than a child of five. At other times in the iagic chamber, between us and the closed door, a person *ho was not there a moment ago makes his appearance; ‘1g a visitor whom we did not hear coming in, and who terely gesticulates, like a figure in one of those little pup- et theatres, so restful for those who have taken a dislike > the spoken tongue. And for this totally deaf man, since ne loss of a sense adds as much beauty to the world as S acquisition, it is with ecstasy that he walks now upon a earth grown almost an Eden, in which sound has not et been created. The highest waterfalls unfold for his yes alone their ribbons of crystal, stiller than the glassy va, like the cascades of Paradise. As sound was for him efore his deafness the perceptible form in which the cause fa movement was draped, objects moved without sound semed to be being moved also without cause; deprived { all resonant quality, they shew a spontaneous activity, em to be alive. They move, halt, become alight of their ‘wn accord. Of their own accord they vanish in the air 1 97 G REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST like the winged monsters of prehistoric days. In the so tary and unneighboured home of the deaf man the Servi! which, before his infirmity was complete, was alreac Shewing an increased discretion, was being carried on. silence, is now assured him with a sort of surreptitll deftness, by mutes, as at the court of a fairy-tale kin) And, as upon the stage, the building on which the 4 man looks from his window—be it barracks, church, | town hall—is only so much scenery. If one day it shou: fall to the ground, it may emit a cloud of dust and lea visible ruins; but, less material even than a palace on t! stage, though it has not the same exiguity, it will subsi in the magic universe without letting the fall of its heay blocks of stone tarnish, with anything so vulgar as sour, the chastity of the prevailing silence. | The silence, though only relative, which reigned in t} little barrack-room where I sat waiting was now broil The door opened and Saint-Loup, dropping his eyeglas, dashed in. | “Ah, my dear Robert, you make yourself very cor: fortable here;” I said to him; “ how jolly it would be! one were allowed to dine and sleep here.” And to be sure, had it not been against the regulation, what repose untinged by sadness I could have tasted ther, guarded by that atmosphere of tranquillity, vigilance ail gaiety which was maintained by a thousand wills er trolled and free from care, a thousand heedless spirits, | that great community called a barracks where, time havi ! taken the form of action, the sad bell that tolled the hou; outside was replaced by the same joyous clarion of the martial calls, the ringing memory of which was kept p petually alive in the paved streets of the town, like t 98 | | THE GUERMANTES WAY ¢st that floats in a sunbeam;—a voice sure of being lard, and musical because it was the command not only . ¢authority to obedience but of wisdom to happiness. “So you’ld rather stay with me and sleep here, would yu, than go to the hotel by yourself?” Saint-Loup asked 12, smiling. “Oh, Robert, it is cruel of you to be sarcastic about |’ I pleaded; “ you know it’s not possible, and you know tw wretched I shall be over there.” “Good! You flatter me!” he replied. “It occurred to {2 just now that you would rather stay here to-night. aid that is precisely what I stopped to ask the Captain.” “ And he has given you leave?” I cried. “He hadn’t the slightest objection.” Oh! I adore him!” “No; that would be going too far. But now, let me st get hold of my batman and tell him to see about our ner,” he went on, while I turned away so as to hide 7 tears. We were several times interrupted by one or other of int-Loup’s friends’ coming in. He drove them all out ain. “ Get out of here. Buzz off!” I begged him to let them stay. I No, really; they would bore you stiff; they are abso- yely uncultured; all they can talk about is racing, or !bles shop. Besides, I don’t want them here either; y would spoil these precious moments I’ve been look- § forward to. But you mustn’t think, when I tell you it these fellows are brainless, that everything military devoid of intellectuality. Far from it. We have a major ‘te who is a splendid chap. He’s given us a course in P P g 99 | | | | | | | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST which military history is treated like a demonstration, 1 a problem in algebra. Even from the aesthetic point view there is a curious beauty, alternately inductive ai deductive, about it which you couldn’t fail to appreciat’ “That’s not the officer who’s given me leave to sti here to-night?” “No; thank God! The man you ‘adore’ for so ‘i trifling a service is the biggest fool that ever walk the face of the earth. He is perfect at looking after me) ing, and at kit inspections; he spends hours with % serjeant major and the master tailor. There you he his mentality. Apart from that he has a vast contem! like everyone here, for the excellent major I was tellik you about. No one will speak to him because he’s a fri mason and doesn’t go to confession. The Prince de Bo) dino would never have an outsider like that in his hou: Which is pretty fair cheek, when all’s said and done, fri a man whose great-grandfather was a small farmer, at who would probably be a small farmer himself if it e | been for the Napoleonic wars. Not that he hasn’t a lu. ing sense of his own rather ambiguous position in og where he’s neither flesh nor fowl. He hardly ever she‘ his face at the Jockey, it makes him feel so deuced av: ward, this so-called Prince,” added Robert, who, havi been led by the same spirit of imitation to adopt the soc theories of his teachers and the worldly prejudices of | relatives, had unconsciously wedded the democratic love! humanity to a contempt for the nobility of the Empire. I was looking at the photograph of his aunt, and 4 thought that, since Saint-Loup had this photograph in possession, he might perhaps give it to me, made me t all the fonder of him and hope to do him a thousa 100 ‘ THE GUERMANTES WAY ervices, which seemed to me a very small exchange for it. sor this photograph was like one encounter more, added » all those that I had already had, with Mme. de Guer- jantes; better still, a prolonged encounter, as if, by some udden stride forward in our relations, she had stopped eside me, in a garden hat, and had allowed me for the yst time to gaze at my leisure at that plump cheek, that jched neck, that tapering eyebrow (veiled from me \therto by the swiftness of her passage, the bewilder- : ent of my impressions, the imperfection of memory) ; ad the contemplation of them, as well as of the bare oem and arms of a woman whom I had never seen ve in a high-necked and long-sleeved bodice, was to me voluptuous discovery, a priceless favour. Those lines, aich had seemed to me almost a forbidden spectacle, I juld study there, as in a text-book of the only geometry lat had any value for me. Later on, when I looked at jabert, I noticed that he too was a little like the photo- aph of his aunt, and by a mysterious process which I ind almost as moving, since, if his face had not been vectly created by hers, the two had nevertheless a com- pn origin. The features of the Duchesse de Guermantes, uch were pinned to my vision of Combray, the nose like ‘alcon’s beak, the piercing eyes, seemed to have served O as a pattern for the cutting out—in another copy alogous and slender, with too delicate a skin—of ibert’s face, which might almost be superimposed upon /aunt’s. I saw in him, with a keen longing, those fea- es characteristic of the Guermantes, of that race which 1 remained so individual in the midst of a world with ich it was not confounded, in which it remained isolated the glory of an ornithomorphic divinity, for it seemed IOI REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST ‘to have been the issue, in the age of mythology, of t union of a goddess with a bird. Robert, without being aware of its cause, was touch| by my evident affection. This was moreover increased |; the sense of comfort inspired in me by the heat of t fire and by the champagne which bedewed at the sar time my brow with beads of sweat and my cheeks wit tears; it washed down the partridges; I ate mine with ty hiiab wonder of a profane mortal of any sort when } finds in a form of life with which he is not familiar whi he has supposed that form of life to exclude—the wond) for instance, of an atheist who sits down to an exquisite cooked dinner in a presbytery. And next morning, whi I awoke, I rose and went to cast from Saint-Loup’s wi dow, which being at a great height overlooked the wh : countryside, a curious scrutiny to make the acquainta : of my new neighbour, the landscape which I had not bet able to distinguish the day before, having arrived too la} at an hour when it was already sleeping beneath the o . spread cloak of night. And yet, early as it had awoki from its sleep, I could see the ground, when I opened window and looked out, only as one sees it from the wi dow a country house, overlooking the lake, shrouded s1 in its soft white morning gown of mist which scarce allowed me to make out anything at all. But I knew th, before the troopers who were busy with their horses! the square had finished grooming them, it would ha cast its gown aside. In the meantime, I could see only; meagre hill, rearing close up against the side of the b: racks a back eendy swept clear of darkness, rough ai wrinkled. Through the transparent curtain of frost I cou not take my eyes from this stranger who, too, was looki 102 THE GUERMANTES WAY 'tme for the first time. But when I had formed the habit f coming to the barracks, my consciousness that the hill vas there, more real, consequently, even when I did not se it, than the hotel at Balbec, than our house in Paris, f which I thought as of absent—or dead—friends, that ; to say without any strong belief in their existence, rought it about that, even although I was not aware of myself, its reflected shape outlined itself on the slightest npressions that I formed at Donciéres, and among them, » begin with this first morning, on the pleasing impres- ‘on of warmth given me by the cup of chocolate prepared y Saint-Loup’s batman in this comfortable room, which ad the effect of being an optical centre from which to sok out at the hill—the idea of there being anything else » do but Just gaze at it, the idea of actually climbing it sing rendered impossible by this same mist. Tinbibige ne shape of the hill, associated with the taste of hot hocolate and with the whole web of my fancies at that articular time, this mist, without my having thought at 1 about it, succeeded in moistening all my subsequent 1oughts about that period, just as a massive and un- elting lump of gold had remained allied to my impres- ‘ons of Balbec, or as the proximity of the outside stairs ‘blackish sandstone gave a grey background to my im- Tessions of Biase It did not, however, persist late . ito the day; the sun began by hurling at it, in vain, a 'w darts which sprinkled it with brilliants before they jally overcame it. The hill might expose its grizzled ‘mp to the sun’s rays, which, an hour later,’ when I went wn to the town, gave to the russet tints of the autumn aves, to the reds and blues of the election posters pasted ‘the walls an exaltation which raised my spirits also 103 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST and made me stamp, singing as I went, on the pavemen from which I could hardly keep myself from jumping the air for joy. But after that first night I had to sleep at the hote And I knew beforehand that I was doomed to find thei sorrow. It was like an unbreathable aroma which all life long had been exhaled for me by every new bedroor| that is to say by every bedroom; in the one which | usually occupied I was not present, my mind rena elsewhere, and in its place sent only the sense of familia ity. But I could not employ this servant, less sensitiy than myself, to look after things for me in a new plac where I preceded him, where I arrived by myself, where must bring into contact with its environment that “ Self which I rediscovered only at year-long intervals, but a) ways the same, having not grown at all since Combra since my first arrival at Balbec, weeping, without ar possibility of consolation, on the edge of an unpacke trunk. | As it happened, I was mistaken. I had no time 5 | sad, for I was not left alone for an instant. The fact the matter was that there remained of the old palad superfluous refinement of structure and decoration, out! place in a modern hotel, which, released from the servi of any practical purpose, had in its long spell of leisu’ acquired a sort of life: passages winding about in all d rections, which one was continually crossing in their aif less wanderings, lobbies as long as corridors and as orna as drawing-rooms, which had the air rather of bem dwellers there themselves than of forming part of a dwe ing, which could not be induced to enter and settle dow in any of the rooms but wandered about outside mine ar 104. ee THE GUERMANTES WAY ime up at once to offer me their company—neighbours "a sort, idle but never noisy, menial ghosts of the ast who had been granted the privilege of staying, pro- ded they kept quiet, by the doors of the rooms which ere let to visitors, and who, every time that I came across sem, greeted me with a silent deference. In short, the ea of a lodging, of simply a case for our existence from wy to day which shields us only from the cold and frem zing overlooked by other people, was absolutely inap- _\icable to this house, an assembly of rooms as real as a vlony of people, living, it was true, in silence, but things hich one was obliged to meet, to avoid, to appreciate, one came in. One tried not to disturb them, and one suld not look without respect at the great drawing-room hich had formed, far back in the eighteenth century, ie habit of stretching itself at its ease, among its hangings ( old gold and beneath the clouds of its painted ceiling. .ad one was seized with a more personal curiosity as to je smaller rooms which, without any regard for sym- etry, ran all round it, innumerable, startled, fleeing in sorder as far as the garden, to which they had so easy i access down three broken steps. Tf I wished to go out or to come in without taking the t or being seen from the main staircase, a smaller private urcase, no longer in use, offered me its steps so skil- lly arranged, one close above another, that there seemed , exist in their gradation a perfect proportion of the me kind as those which, in colours, scents, savours, -€n arouse in us a peculiar, sensuous pleasure. But the 2asure to be found in going up and downstairs I had had come here to learn, as once before to a health resort ‘the Alps to find that the act—as a rule not noticed— 105 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST of drawing breath could be a perpetual delight. I receive) that dispensation from effort which is granted to us onl) by the things to which long use has accustomed us, whe} I set my feet for the first time on those steps, familia before ever I knew them, as if they possessed, deposite; on them, perhaps, embodied in them by the masters ¢ long ago whom they used to welcome every day, th prospective: charm of habits which I had not yet cor tracted and which indeed could only grow weaker on¢ they had become my own. I looked into a room; th double doors closed themselves behind me, the hanging let in a silence in which I felt myself invested with a so) of exhilarating royalty; a marble mantelpiece with orni ments of wrought brass—of which one would have bee! wrong to think that its sole idea was to represent th art of the Directory—offered me a fire, and a little eas) chair on short legs helped me to warm myself as com fortably as if I had been sitting on the hearthrug. TI walls held the room in a close embrace, separating it froi the rest of the world and, to let in, to enclose what mac it complete, parted to make way for the bookcase, ri served a place for the bed, on either side of which } column airily upheld the Eh ceiling of the alcove. An the room was prolonged in depth by two closets as larg as itself, the latter of which had hanging from its wa to scent the occasion on which one had recourse to it, voluptuous rosary of orris-roots; the doors, if I left the open when I withdrew into this innermost retreat, wei not content with tripling its dimensions without its cea ing to be well-proportioned, and not only allowed m eyes to enjoy the delights of extension after those of co! centration, but added further to the pleasure of my so] 106 ; THE GUERMANTES WAY ude, which, while still inviolable, was no longer shut in, he sense of liberty. This closet looked out upon a court- ard, a fair solitary stranger whom I was glad to have for neighbour when next morning my eyes fell on her, a aptive between her high walls in which no other window pened, with nothing but two yellowing trees which were ough to give a pinkish softness to the pure sky above. | Before going to bed I decided to leave the room in order 9 explore the whole of my fairy kingdom. I walked down ‘long gallery which did me homage successively with all at it had to offer me if I could not sleep, an armchair laced waiting in a corner, a spinet, on a table against the yall, a bowl of blue crockery filled with cinerarias, and, aan old frame, the phantom of a lady of long ago whose jowdered hair was starred with blue flowers, holding in er hand a bunch of carnations. When I came to the end, ne bare wall in which no door opened said to me simply: ‘Now you must turn and go back, but, you see, you are t home here, the house is yours,” while the soft carpet, ot to be left out, added that if I did not sleep that night could easily come in barefoot, and the unshuttered win- ows, looking out over the open country, assured me that tey would hold a sleepless vigil and that, at whatever our I chose to come in, I need not be afraid of dis- rbing anyone. And behind a hanging curtain I surprised aly a little closet which, stopped by the wall and unable y escape any farther, had hidden itself there with a guilty mscience and gave me a frightened stare from its little »und window, glowing blue in the moonlight. I went to 2d, but the presence of the eiderdown quilt, of the pillars, the neat fireplace, by straining my attention to a pitch "yond that of Paris, prevented me from letting myself 107 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST go upon my habitual train of fancies. And as it is thi particular state of strained attention that enfolds ov slumbers, acts upon them, modifies them, brings them int line/with this or that series of past impressions, the image that filled my dreams that first night were borrowed from) memory entirely distinct from that on which I was in th habit of drawing. If I had been tempted while asleep t let myself be swept back upon my ordinary current ¢ remembrance, the bed to which I was not accustomed, th’ comfortable attention which I was obliged to pay to th position of my various limbs when I turned over wer sufficient to correct my error, to disentangle and to kee running the new thread of my dreams. It is the sam with sleep as with our perception of the external world. ] needs only a modification in our habits to make it poeti: it is enough that while undressing we should have doze off unconsciously upon the bed, for the dimensions of ot dream-world to be altered and its beauty felt. We awaki look at our watch, see “four o’clock”; it is only fou o’clock in the morning, but we imagine that the whol day has gone by, so vividly does this nap of a few minute) unsought by us, appear to have come down to us fror the skies, by virtue of some divine right, full-bodiec vast, like an Emperor’s orb of gold. In the morning, whil worrying over the thought that my grandfather was ready and was waiting for me to start on our walk along th Méséglise way, I was awakened by the blare of a regi _mental band which passed every day beneath my wit dows. But on several occasions—and I mention these be: cause one cannot properly describe human life unless on shews it soaked in the sleep in which it plunges, whicl night after night, sweeps round it as a promontory i 108 THE GUERMANTES WAY neircled by the sea—the intervening layer of sleep was trong enough to bear the shock of the music and I heard -jothing. On the other mornings it gave way for a mo- nent; but, still velvety with the refreshment of having _lept, my consciousness (like those organs by which, after | local anaesthetic, a cauterisation, not perceived at first, felt only at the very end and then as a faint burning jmart) was touched only gently by the shrill points of |ne fifes which caressed it with a vague, cool, matutinal | varbling; and after this brief interruption in which the -ilence Hed turned to music it relapsed into my slumber : T° even the dragoons had finished passing, depriving . a : ae of the latest opening buds of the sparkling clangorous vosegay. And the zone of my consciousness which its (pringing stems had brushed was so narrow, so cir- wumscribed with sleep that later on, when Saint- -Loup ssked me whether I had heard the Banal I was no longer ‘ertain that the sound of its brasses had not been as imagi- ary as that which I heard during the day echo, after the lightest noise, from the paved streets of the town. Per- ‘aps I had heard it only in a dream, prompted by my ear of being awakened, or else of not being awakened and 9 not seeing the regiment march past. For often, when /was still asleep at the moment when, on the contrary, I lad supposed that the noise would awaken me, for the ‘ext hour I imagined that I was awake, while still drows- ag, and I enacted to myself with tenuous shadow-shapes m the screen of my slumber the various scenes of which : deprived me but at which I had the illusion of looking * im. ' What one has meant to do during the day, as it turns ut, sleep intervening, one accomplishes only in one’s 109 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST dreams, that is to say after it has been distorted by slee! into following another line than one would have chose when awake. The same story branches off and has a di ferent ending. When all is said, the world in which we liv) when we are asleep is so different that people who ha | difficulty in going to sleep seek first of all to escape fror the waking world. After having desperately, for hours o} end, with shut eyes, revolved in their minds thoughts sim} lar to those which they would have had with their eye open, they take heart again on noticing that the last minut has been crawling under the weight of an argument i) formal contradiction of the laws of thought, and thei realisation of this, and the brief “absence” to which j) points, indicate that the door is now open through whic; they will perhaps be able, presently, to escape from th perception of the real, to advance to a resting-place mor! or less remote on the other side, which will mean the having a more or less “ good” night. But already a greg| stride has been made when we turn our back on the rea’ when we reach the cave in which “ auto-suggestions ” pre pare—like witches—the hell-broth of imaginary maladie or of the recurrence of nervous disorders, and watch fc the hour at which the storm that has been gathering durin! our unconscious sleep will break with sufficient force t| make sleep cease. A Not far thence is the secret garden in which grow lik strange flowers the kinds of sleep, so different one fror another, the sleep induced by datura, by the multiple ey) tracts of ether, the sleep of belladonna, of opium, ¢ valerian, flowers whose petals remain shut until the da) when the predestined visitor shall come and, touchin them, bid them open, and for long hours inhale the arom) 110 —~ THE GUERMANTES WAY # their peculiar dreams into a marvelling and bewildered veing. At the end of the garden stands the convent with pen windows through which we hear voices repeating the essons learned before we went to sleep, which we shall mow only at the moment of awakening; while, a presage if that moment, sounds the resonant tick of that inward Jarum which our preoccupation has so effectively regu- ated that when our housekeeper comes in with the warn- ag: “It is seven o’clock,” she will find us awake and eady. On the dim walls of that chamber which opens pon our dreams, within which toils without ceasing that blivion of the sorrows of love whose task, interrupted and rought to nought at times by a nightmare big with miniscence, is ever speedily resumed, hang, even after we te awake, the memories of our dreams, but so over- jaadowed that often we catch sight of them for the st time only in the broad light of the afternoon when ae ray of a similar idea happens by chance to strike vem; some of them brilliant and harmonious while ¢ slept, but already so distorted that, having failed » recognise them, we can but hasten to lay them in le earth like dead bodies too quickly decomposed or ics so seriously damaged, so nearly crumbling into Ist that the most skilful restorer could not bring them ack to their true form or make anything of them. ear the gate is the quarry to which our _ heavier ambers repair in search of substances which coat the ‘ain with so unbreakable a glaze that, to awaken the reper, his own will is obliged, even on a golden morn- 8, to smite him with mighty blows, like a young egiried. Beyond this, again, are the nightmares of which 2 doctors foolishly assert that they tire us more than III REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST does insomnia, whereas on the contrary they enable tl thinker to escape from the strain of thought; those nig mares with their fantastic picture-books in which 0) relatives who are dead are shewn meeting with a serio accident which at the same time does not preclude the speedy recovery. Until then we keep them in a little ra cage, in which they are smaller than white mice and, co ered with big red spots, out of each of which a feath sprouts, engage us in Ciceronian dialogues. Next — this picture-book is the revolving disc of awakening, 1 virtue of which we submit for a moment to the tedium having to return at once to a house which was pull down fifty years ago, the memory of which is gradual effaced as sleep grows more distant by a number of other until we arrive at that memory which the disc presen only when it has ceased to revolve and which coincid with what we shall see with opened eyes. Sometimes I had heard nothing, being in one of tho slumbers into which we fall as into a pit from which v are heartily glad to be drawn up a little later, heavy, ove fed, digesting all that has been brought to us (as by t! nymphs Hs fed the infant Hercules) by those agi vegetative powers whose activity is doubled while ¥ sleep. That kind of sleep is called “sleeping like lead”, at it seems as though one has become, oneself, and remai for a few moments after such a sleep is ended, simply leaden image. One is no longer a person. How then, see ing for one’s mind, one’s personality, as one seeks for thing that is lost, does one recover one’s own self rath chen any other? Why, when one begins again to think, it not another personality than yesterday’s that is i 112 | —— SS ee se os ead THE GUERMANTES WAY arnate in one? One fails to see what can dictate the i] hoice, or why, among the millions of human beings any ne of whom one might be, it is on him who one was over- ight that unerringly one lays one’s hand? What is it qat guides us, when there has been an actual interruption -whether it be that our unconsciousness has been com- lete or our dreams entirely different from ourself? There ‘as indeed been death, as when the heart has ceased to eat and a rhythmical friction of the tongue revives us. fo doubt the room, even if we have seen it only once efore, awa awakens ‘memories to which other, older memories ing. a Ory were some memoriés also asleep 1 in us of which ' now become conscious? The resurrection at our en Wwe recapture a name, a line, a refrain that we had zath is to be conceived as a phenomenon of memory. ty—but discouraged by the chill—of those last autumn ornings, so luminous and so cold, in which winter begins, get up and look at the trees on which the leaves were dicated now only by a few strokes, golden or rosy, which emed to have been left in the air, on an invisible web, raised my head from the pillow and stretched my neck, ‘eping my body still hidden beneath the bedclothes; like chrysalis i in the process of change I was a dual creature, ith the different parts of which a single environment did ot agree; for my eyes colour was sufficient, without armth; my chest on the other hand was anxious for wakening—after that healing attack of mental alienation | hich i is ‘egaecsabee after all be similar to what occurs | irgotten. And perhaps fis resurrection of the soul after ‘When I had finished sleeping, tempted by the sunlit~ armth and not for colour. I rose only after my fire had | en lighted, and studied the picture, so delicate and I Pres H REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST transparent, of the pink and golden morning, to which had now added by artificial means the element of warmt that it lacked, poking my fire which burned and smal like a good pipe and gave me, as a pipe would have give me, a pleasure at once coarse because it was based upon material comfort and delicate because beyond it we printed a pure vision. The walls of my dressing-roo) were covered with a paper on which a violent red bael ground was patterned with black and white flowers, { which it seemed that I should have some difficulty i growing accustomed. But they succeeded only in strilal me as novel, in forcing me to enter not into conflict bi into contact with them, in modulating the gaiety, th songs of my morning toilet, they succeeded only in in prisoning me in the heart of a sort of poppy, out of whic to look at a world which I saw quite differently frot in Paris, from the gay screen which was this ne dwelling-place, of a different aspect from the house of m parents, and into which flowed a purer air. On certai days, I was agitated by the desire to see my grandmothr again, or by the fear that she might be ill, or else it we the memory of some undertaking which I had left hal finished in Paris, and which seemed to have made ni progress; sometimes again it was some difficulty in whic] even here, I had managed to become involved. One « other of these anxieties hed kept me from sleeping, and was without strength to face my sorrow which in a the ' ment grew to fill tke whole of my existence.! Then fro | the hotel I sent a messenger to the barracks, with a line1 Saint-Loup: I told him that, should it be materially po sible—I knew that it was extremely difficult for him—| should be most grateful if he would look in for a minut 114 OO ee OO oe THE GUERMANTES WAY An hour later he arrived; and on hearing his ring at the coor I felt myself liberated from my obsessions. I knew hat, if they were stronger than I, he was stronger than hey, and my attention was diverted from them and con- entrated on him who would have to settle them. He had ome into the room, and already he had enveloped me in he gust of fresh air in which from before dawn he had een displaying so much activity, a vital atmosphere very ifferent from that of my room, to which I at once adapted ayself by appropriate reactions. _“T hope you weren’t angry with me for bothering you; nere is something that is worrying me, as you probably essed.” “Not at all; I just supposed you wanted to see me, and thought it very nice of you. I was delighted that you aould have sent for me. But what is the trouble? Things ot going well? What can I do to Belo? He listened to my explanations, and gave careful an- vers; but before he had uttered a word he had trans- ormed me to his own likeness; compared with the im- artant occupations which kept him so busy, so alert, so ippy, the worries which, a moment ago, I had been un- dle to endure for another instant seemed to me as to m negligible; I was like a man who, not having been le to open his eyes for some days, sends for a doctor, ho neatly and gently raises his eyelid, removes from be- vath it and shews him a grain of sand; the sufferer is saled and comforted. All my cares resolved themselves i: a telegram which Saint-Loup undertook to dispatch. -fe seemed to me so different, so delightful; I was flooded \th such a surfeit of strength that I longed for action. “What are you doing now?” I asked him. 115 4 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “T must leave you, I’m afraid; we’re going on a rout march in three quarters of an hour, and I have to be ° parade.” “Then it’s been a great bother to you, coming hee “No, no bother at all, the Captain was very good abow it; he told me that if it was for you | must go at onc¢ but you understand, I don’t like to seem to be abusing tl privilege.” | “ But if I got up and dressed quickly and went by my self to the place where you'll be training, it would intel me immensely, and I could perhaps talk to you durir| the breaks.” “T shouldn’t advise you to do that; you have bee lying awake, racking your brains over a thing which, assure you, is not of the slightest importance, but no that it has ceased to worry you, lay your head down ¢ the pillow and go to sleep, which you will find an excelle| antidote to the demineralisation of your nerve-cells; on| you mustn’t go to sleep too soon, because our band-bo! will be coming along under your windows; but as soon } they’ve passed I think you'll be left in peace, and ¥ shall meet again this evening, at dinner.” But soon I was constantly going to see the regime} being trained in field operations, when I began to take | interest in the military theories which Saint-Loup’s frien} used to expound over the dinner-table, and when it hl become the chief desire of my life to see at close quarté their various leaders, just as a person who makes mut his principal study and spends his life in the concert ha} finds pleasure in frequenting the cafés in which 0: mingles with the life of the members of the orchestra, 4 reach the training ground I used to have to take ti 116 | | THE GUERMANTES WAY aendously long walks. In the evening after dinner the ging for sleep made my head drop every now and then 3in aswoon. Next morning I realised that I had no more eard the band than, at Balbec, after the evenings on vhich Saint-Loup had taken me to dinner at Rivebelle, vused to hear the concert on the beach. And at the mo- hag when I wished to rise I had a delicious feeling of capacity; I felt myself fastened to a deep, invisible round by the articulations (of which my tiredness made e conscious) of muscular and nutritious roots. I felt yself full of strength; life seemed to extend more amply afore me; this was because I had reverted to the good redness of my childhood at Combray on the mornings llowing days on which we had taken the Guermantes alk. Poets make out that we recapture for a moment the lf that we were long ago when we enter some house or arden in which we used to live in our youth. But these ve most hazardous pilgrimages, which end as often in sappointment as in success. The fixed places, contem- prary with different years, it is in ourselves that we jould rather seek to find them. This is where the advan- ige comes in, to a certain extent, of great exhaustion fol- jwed by a good night’s rest. Good nights, to make us escend into the most subterranean galleries of sleep, jaere no reflexion from overnight, no gleam of memory (mes to lighten the inward monologue (if so be that it jase not also), turn so effectively the soil and break (rough the surface stone of our body that we discover ere, where our muscles dive down and throw out their :& roots and breathe the air of the new life, the garden i which as a child we used to play. There is no need to lavel in order to see it again; we must dig down inwardly 117 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST to discover it. What once covered the earth is no long) upon it but beneath; a mere excursion does not suffice f} a visit to the dead city, excavation is necessary also. B. we shall see how certain impressions, fugitive and fc. tuitous, carry us back even more effectively to the pai with a more delicate precision, with a flight more ligt: winged, more immaterial, more headlong, more unerrir| more immortal than these organic dislocations. | Sometimes my exhaustion was greater still; I had, wit; out any opportunity of going to bed, been following t! operations for several days on end. How blessed thi was my return to the hotel! As I got into bed I seem} to have escaped at last from the hands of enchante} sorcerers like those who people the “romances ” belovk of our forebears in the seventeenth century. My sle) that night and the lazy morning that followed it were ; more than a charming fairy tale. Charming; benefice perhaps also. I reminded myself that the,keenest sufly ings have their place of sanctuary, that one can alway me far. | On days when, although there was no parade, Sats Loup had to stay in barracks, ! used often to go and vi immense view. A one breeze blew almost always on this high ground, and filled all the buildings erected 1 three sides of the barrack-square, which howled incessan} like a cave of the winds. While I waited for Robert being engaged on some duty or other—outside the du of his room or in the mess, talking to some of his frierj to whom he had introduced me (and whom later or. 118 | THE GUERMANTES WAY ame now and then to see, even when he was not to be iere), looking down from the window three hundred feet ) the country below, bare now except where recently own fields, often still soaked with rain and glittering 1 the sun, shewed a few stripes of green, of the brilliance nd translucent limpidity of enamel, I could hear him iscussed by the others, and I soon learned what a opular favourite he was. Among many of the volunteers, elonging to other squadrons, sons of rich business or tofessional men who looked at the higher aristocratic beicty only from outside and without penetrating its en- ‘osure, the attraction which they naturally felt towards that they knew of Saint-Loup’s character was reinforced y the distinction that attached in their eyes to the young an whom, on Saturday evenings, when they went on pass. ) Paris, they had seen supping in the Café de la Paix ath the Duc d’Uzés and the Prince d’Orléans. And on ‘at account, into his handsome face, his casual way of falking and saluting officers, the perpetual dance of his veglass, the affectation shewn in the cut of his service ess—the caps always too high, the breeches of too fine ‘cloth and too pink a shade—they had introduced the ea of a “tone” which, they were positive, was lacking the best turned-out officers in the regiment, even the ajestic Captain to whom I had been indebted for the ivilege of sleeping in barracks, who seemed, in com- ‘Tison, too pompous and almost common. One of them said that the Captain had bought a new tse. “ He can buy as many horses as he likes. I passed int-Loup on Sunday morning in the Allée des Acacias; tw he’s got some style on a horse!” replied his com- nion, and knew what he was talking about, for these 119 q REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST rt young fellows belonged to a class which, if it does not fre quent the same houses and know the same people, ye| thanks to money and leisure, does not differ from th nobility in its experience of all those refinements of lif which money can procure. At any rate their refinemer had, in the matter of clothes, for instance, something abou it more studied, more impeccable than that free and eas. negligence which had so delighted my grandmother i Saint-Loup. It gave quite a thrill to these sons of bi stockbrokers or bankers, as they sat eating oysters afte the theatre, to see at an adjoining table Serjeant Sain’ Loup. And what a tale there was to tell in barracks o) Monday night, after a week-end leave, by one of thet who was in Robert’s squadron, and to whom he had sai how d’ye do “ most civilly ”, while another, who was ni in the same squadron, was quite positive that, in spite ¢ this, Saint-Loup had recognised him, for two or thre times he had put up fe eyeglass and stared in tt speaker’s direction. | “Yes, my brother saw him at the Paix,” said anothe| who had been spending the day with his mistress; “m| brother BOG his dress coat was cut too loose and digs fit him.” | “What was the waistcoat like? ” “He wasn’t wearing a white waistcoat; it was purpl| with sort of palms on it; stunning!” | To the “ old soldiers (sons of the soil who had nev heard of the Jockey Club and simply put Saint-Loup i the category of ultra-rich non-commissioned officers, j which they included all those who, whether bankrupt ¢ not, lived in a certain style, whose income or debts ra into several figures, and who were generous towards the 120 THE GUERMANTES WAY en), the gait, the eyeglass, the breeches, the caps of Saint ‘oup, even if they saw in them nothing particularly aris- ‘cratic, furnished nevertheless just as much interest and veaning. They recognized in these peculiarities the char- ster, the style which they had assigned once and for all ‘ne to this most popular of the “ stripes ” in the regiment, ‘anners like no one’s else, scornful indifference to what 8 superior officers might think, which seemed to them ‘e natural corollary of his goodness to his subordinates. ‘he morning cup of coffee in the canteen, the afternoon lay-down ” in the barrack-room seemed pleasanter, {mehow, when some old soldier fed the hungering, lazy {ction with some savoury tit-bit as to a cap in which jint-Loup had appeared on parade. “Tt was the height of my pack.” “Come off it, old chap, you don’t expect us to believe fat; it couldn’t have been the height of your pack,” in- irrupted a young college graduate who hoped by using ese slang terms not to appear a “ learned beggar”, and ‘ venturing on this contradiction to obtain confirmation a fact the thought of which enchanted him. “Oh, so it wasn’t the height of my pack, wasn’t it? jou measured it, I suppose! I tell you this much, the ( O. glared at it as if he’ld have liked to put him in clink. hit you needn’t think the great Saint-Loup felt squashed; , he went and he came, and down with his head and ’ with his head, and that blinking glass screwed in 3 eye all the time. We’ll see what the ‘ Capstan’ has to éy when he hears. Oh, very likely he’ll say nothing, but )u may be sure he won’t be pleased. But there’s nothing ¢ wonderful about that cap. I hear he’s got thirty of ’em ‘d more at home, at his house in town.” 121 * REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “Where did you hear that, old man? From our blaste corporal-dog?” asked the young graduate, pedanticall displaying the new forms of speech which he had onl recently acquired and with which he took a pride i garnishing his conversation. | “Where did I hear it? From his batman; what d’yo think? ” “ Ah! Now you're talking. That’s a chap who knoy when he’s well off!” “T should say so! He’s got more in his pocket than have, certain sure! And besides he gives him all his ow things, and everything. He wasn’t getting his grub pro erly, he says. Along comes de Saint-Loup, and giw cooky hell: ‘I want him to be properly fed, d’you hear he says, ‘and I don’t care what it costs.’ ” The old soldier made up for the triviality of the wor quoted by the emphasis of his tone, in a feeble imitatic of the speaker which had an immense success. On leaving the barracks I would take a stroll, and the to fill up the time before I went, as I did every evenin to dine with Saint-Loup at the hotel in which he and h friends had established their mess, I made for my ow as soon as the sun had set, so as to have a couple of hou in which to rest and read. In the Square, the evening lig bedecked the pepper-pot turrets of the castle with litt pink clouds which matched the colour of the bricks, at completed the harmony by softening the tone of latter where it bathed them. So strong a current of vitali coursed through my nerves that no amount of moveme on my part could exhaust it; each step I took, after touc ing a stone of the pavement, rebounded off it, I seem to have growing on my heels the wings of Mercury. O 122 rh i. i x, | the fountains was filled with a ruddy glow, while in e other the moonlight had already begun to turn the ater opalescent. Between them were children at play, tering shrill cries, wheeling in circles, obeying some ‘cessity of the hour, like swifts or bats. Next door to é hotel, the old National Courts and the Louis XVI angery, in which were installed now the savings-bank id the Army Corps headquarters, were lighted from thin by the palely gilded globes of their gas-jets which, en in the still clear daylight outside, suited those vast, ll, eighteenth-century windows from which the last rays the setting sun had not yet departed, as would have ited a complexion heightened with rouge a headdress of low tortoise-shell, and persuaded me to seek out my feside and the lamp which, alone in the shadowy front (my hotel, was striving to resist the gathering darkness, ad for the sake of which I went indoors before it was cite dark, for pleasure, as to an appetising meal. I kept, tien I was in my room, the same fulness of sensation at I had felt outside. It gave such an apparent convexity surface to things which as a rule seem flat and empty, the yellow flame of the fire, the coarse blue paper on 2 ceiling, on which the setting sun had scribbled cork- sews and whirligigs, like a schoolboy with a piece of red alk, the curiously patterned cloth on the round table, -which a ream of essay paper and an inkpot lay in idiness for me, with one of Bergotte’s novels, that ever ice then these things have continued to seem to me to enriched with a whole form of existence which I feel at I should be able to extract from them if it were anted me to set eyes on them again. I thought with }7 of the barracks that I had just left and of their 123 THE GUERMANTES WAY : REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST weather-cock turning with every wind that blew. Like | diver breathing through a pipe which rises above the su face of the water, I felt that I was in a sense maintainir contact with a healthy, open-air life when I kept as a Ht ing-place those barracks, that towering observatory, dom nating a country-side furrowed with canals of gre¢ enamel, into whose various buildings I esteemed as a % less privilege, which I hoped would last, my freedom to ¢ whenever I chose, always certain of a welcome. At seven o’clock I dressed myself and went out aga to dine with Saint-Loup at the hotel where he took h meals. I liked to go there on foot. It was by now pite dark, and after the third day of my visit there began 1 blow, as soon as night had fallen, an icy wind whic seemed a harbinger of snow. As I walked, I ought ne strictly speaking, to have ceased for a moment to thir of Mme. de Guermantes; it was only in the attempt # draw nearer to her that I had come to visit Robert’s ga rison. But a memory, a grief, are fleeting things. There a’ days when they remove so far that we are barely conscio) of them, we think that they have gone for ever. Then w pay attention to other things. And the streets of this tow had not yet become for me what streets are in the play where one is accustomed to live, simply means of con munication between one part and another. The life le by the inhabitants of this unknown world must, it seem( to me, be a marvellous thing, and often the lighted wil dows of some dwelling-house kept me standing for a lor while motionless in the darkness by laying before my ey: the actual and mysterious scenes of an existence into whi I might not penetrate. Here the fire-spirit displayed — me in purple colouring the booth of a chestnut seller 124 THE GUERMANTES WAY which a couple of serjeants, their belts slung over the vacks of chairs, were playing cards, never dreaming that magician’s wand was making them emerge from the light, like a transparency on the stage, and presenting hem in their true lineaments at that very moment to the yes of an arrested passer-by whom they could not see. na little curiosity shop a candle, burned almost to its ocket, projecting its warm glow over an engraving re- tinted it in sanguine, while, battling against the dark- ‘ess, the light of the big lamp tanned a scrap of leather, alaid a dagger with fiery spangles, on pictures which vere only bad copies spread a priceless film of gold like ae patina of time or the varnish used by a master, made a fact of the whole hovel, in which there was nothing but inchbeck rubbish, a marvellous composition by Rem- randt. Sometimes I lifted my gaze to some huge old welling-house on which the shutters had not been closed nd in which amphibious men and women floated slowly 9 and fro in the rich liquid that after nightfall rose in- essantly from the wells of the lamps to fill the rooms to ae very brink of the outer walls of stone and glass, the ovement of their bodies«sending through it long unctuous olden ripples. I proceeded on my way, and often, in the ark alley that ran past the cathedral, as long ago on the aad to Méséglise, the force of my desire caught and held ue; it seemed that a woman must be on the point of ap- earing, to satisfy it; if, in the darkness, I felt suddenly Tush past me a skirt, the violence of the pleasure which then felt made it impossible for me to believe that the omtact was accidental and I attempted to seize in my rms a terrified stranger. This gothic alley meant for me omething so real that if I had been successful in raising | 125 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST and enjoying a woman there, it would have been impos- sible for me not to believe that it was the ancient char | of the place that was bringing us together, and even though she were no more than a common street-walker, ‘stationed there every evening, still the wintry night, the strange place, the darkness, the mediaeval atmosphere would have lent her their mysterious glamour. I thought of what might be in store for me; to try to forget Mme de Guermantes seemed to me a dreadful thing, but reason- able, and for the first time possible, easy perhaps even, In the absolute quiet of this neighbourhood I could hear ahead of me shouted words and laughter which must come from tipsy revellers staggering home. I waited te see them, I stood peering in the direction from which I had heard the sound. But I was obliged to wait for som time, for the surrounding silence was so intense that it allowed to travel with the utmost clearness and strength sounds that were still a long way off. Finally the reveller did appear; not, as I had supposed, in front of me, but ever so far behind. Whether the intersection of side- streets, the interposition of buildings had, by reverbera- tion, brought about this acoustic error, or because it is very difficult to locate a sound when the place from whie it comes is not known, I had been as far wrong ovet direction as over distance. The wind grew stronger. It was thick and bristling with coming snow. I returned to the main street and jumped on board the little tramway-car on which, from its platform, an officer, without apparently seeing them, wa acknowledging the salutes of the loutish soldiers wh trudged past along the pavement, their faces daubed crimson by the cold, reminding me, in this little town 126 At I ie THE GUERMANTES WAY which the sudden leap from autumn into early winter seemed to have transported farther north, of the rubi- cund faces which Breughel gives to his merry, junketing, ‘rostbound peasants, _ And sure enough at the hotel where I was to meet Saint-Loup and his friends and to which the fair now beginning had attracted a number of people from near ind far, I found, as I hurried across the courtyard with its ylimpses of glowing kitchens in which chickens were jurming on spits, pigs were roasting, lobsters being flung, ulive, into what the landlord called the “ everlasting fire ”, in influx (worthy of some Numbering of the People before Bethlehem such as the old Flemish masters used to paint) of new arrivals who assembled there in groups, asking ‘he landlord or one of his staff (who, if he did not like the ook of them, would recommend lodgings elsewhere in jhe town) whether they could have dinner and beds, while a scullion hurried past holding a struggling fowl by the veck. And similarly, in the big dining-room which I ‘rossed the first day before coming to the smaller room n which my friend was waiting for me, it was of some east in the Gospels portrayed with a mediaeval simplicity and an exaggeration typically Flemish that one was re- ninded by the quantity of fish, pullets, grouse, woodcock, nigeons, brought in dressed and garnished and piping hot vy breathless waiters who slid over the polished floor to fain speed and set them down on the huge carving table where they were at once cut up but where—for most of he people had nearly finished dinner when I arrived— hey accumulated untouched, as though their profusion nd the haste of those who brought them in were due not © much to the requirements of the diners as to respect 127 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | for the sacred text, scrupulously followed in the letter bu guaintly illustrated by real details borrowed from loca custom, and to an aesthetic and religious scruple for e ing evident to the eye the solemnity of the feast by thi profusion of the victuals and the assiduity of the servers! One of these stood lost in thought at the far end of thy room by a sideboard; and to find out from him, who | appeared calm enough to be capable of answering me, i which room our table had been laid, making my way for! ward among the chafing-dishes that had been lighted : | and there to keep the late comers’ plates from growin cold (which did not, however, prevent the dessert, in th centre of the room, from being piled on the outstretche¢ hands of a huge mannikin, sometimes supported on thi wings of a duck, apparently of crystal, but really of ice carved afresh every day with a hot iron by a sculptor cook, quite in the Flemish manner), I went straight—at th risk of being knocked down by his colleagues—toward this servitor, in whom I felt that I recognised a on who is traditionally present in all these sacred subjects for he reproduced with scrupulous accuracy the blun features, fatuous and ill-drawn, the musing expression already half aware of the miracle of a divine presenci which the others have not yet begun to suspect. I shoul: add that, in view probably of the coming fair, this pres entation was strengthened by a celestial contingent, re cruited in mass, of cherubim and seraphim. A youn! angel musician, whose fair hair enclosed a fourteen-yeat old face, was not, it was true, playing on any instrument but stood musing before a gong or a pile of plates, whil other less infantile angels flew swiftly across the bound less expanse of the room, beating the air with the ceaseles 128 THE GUERMANTES WAY uttering of the napkins which fell along the lines of their odies like the wings in “primitive” paintings, with ointed ends. Fleeing those ill-defined regions, screened y a hedge of palms through which the angelic servitors voked, from a distance, as though they had floated down at of the empyrean, I explored my way to the smaller yom in which Saint-Loup’s table was laid. I found there ‘veral of his friends who dined with him regularly, nobles ccept for one or two commoners in whom the young ables had, in their school days, detected likely friends, id with whom they readily associated, proving thereby at they were not on principle hostile to the middle class, ren though it were Republican, provided it had clean ands and went to mass. On the first of these evenings, store we sat down to dinner, I drew Saint-Loup into a yrner and, in front of all the rest but so that they should ot hear me, said to him: “Robert, this is hardly the time or the place for what am going to say, but I shan’t be a second. I keep on for- ‘ting to ask you when I’m in the barracks; isn’t that jme. de Guermantes’s photograph that you have on your ible? % “Why, yes; my good aunt.” “Of course she is; what a fool I am; you told me lfore that she was; I’d forgotten all about her being yur aunt. I say, your friends will be getting impatient, \: must be quick, they’re looking at us; another time will ¢; it isn’t at all important.” “ That’s all right; go on as long as you like. They can Vit.” “No, no; I do want to be polite to them; they’re so ie; besides, it doesn’t really matter in the least, I as- I 129 I REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST sure you.” “Do you know that worthy Oriane, then?” This “worthy Oriane,” as he might have said, “ thi good Oriane,”’ did not imply that Saint-Loup regarde Mme. de Guermantes as especially good. In this install the words “ good ”, “ excellent”, “ worthy» are mere rely forcements a, the doinonatenntee “that”, indicating a pe: son who is known to both parties and of whom the speak does not quite know what to say to someone outside tl intimate circle. The word “good” does duty as a stoy gap and keeps the conversation going for a moment uni the speaker has hit upon “ Do you see much of her?” « “T haven’t set eyes on her for months,” or “I shall t seeing her on Tuesday,” or “ She must be getting on, no you know.” “T can’t tell you how funny it is that it should be h photograph, because we’re living in her house now, Paris, and I’ve been hearing the most astounding things| (I should have been hard put to it to say what) “ abo! her, which have made me immensely interested in he only from a literary point of view, don’t you know, fro} a—how shall I put it—from a Balzacian point of viev but you're so clever you can see what I mean; I don’t net to explain things to you; but we must hurry up; what ¢ earth will your friends think of my manners?” a “They will think absolutely nothing; I have told the that you are sublime, se they are a great deal mo alarmed than you are.’ ot “You are too kind. But listen, what I want to say | this: I suppose Mme. de Guermantes hasn’t any idea I know ha has she? ” Ng yi Dicamt ee I haven’t seen her since the summer, b 130 THE GUERMANTES WAY jause I haven’t had any leave since she’s been in town.” | “What I was going to say is this: I’ve been told that ne looks on me as an absolute idiot.” “That I do not believe; Oriane is not exactly an eagle, ut all the same she’s by’no means stupid.” “You know that, as a rule, I don’t care about your ivertising the good opinion you’re kind enough to hold me; I’m not conceited. That’s why I’m sorry you nould have said flattering things about me to your fiends here (we will go back to them in two seconds), ut Mme. de Guermantes is different; if you could let x know—if you would even exaggerate a trifle—what ou think of me, you would give me great pleasure.” 1“ Why, of course I will, if that’s all you want me to 4 | ()3 It’s not very difficult; but what difference can it pos- oly make to you what she thinks of you! I suppose pu think her no end of a joke, really; anyhow, if that’s H you want we can discuss it in front of the others or jaen we are by ourselves; I’m afraid of your tiring your- if if you stand talking, and it’s so inconvenient too, jen we have heaps of opportunities of being alone igether.” It was precisely this inconvenience that had given me (urage to approach Robert; the presence of the others ‘1s for me a pretext that justified my giving my remarks écurt and incoherent form, under cover of which I could ig easily dissemble the falsehood of my saying to my Jend that I had forgotten his connexion with the lichess, and also did not give him time to frame—with ae to my reasons for wishing that Mme. de Guer- lintes should know that I was his friend, was clever, ed so forth—questions which would have been all the 131 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST more disturbing in that I should not have been able t answer them. | | “ Robert, I’m surprised that a man of your intelligence should fail to understand that one doesn’t discuss th, things that will give one’s friends pleasure; one does then Now I, if you were to ask me no matter what, and indee I only wish you would ask me to do something for yo I can assure you I shouldn’t want any explanations, | may ask you for more than I really want; I have no desu to know Mme. de Guermantes, but just to test you I ougl to have said that I was anxious to dine with Mme. c Guermantes; I am sure you would never have done it “ Not only should I have done it, I will do it.” “When? ” “Next time I’m in Paris, three weeks from now, expect.” “We shall see; I dare say she won’t want to see m though. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.” “ Not at all; it’s nothing.” “Don’t say that; it’s everything in the world, becau now I can see what sort of friend you are; whether wh: I ask you to do is important or not, disagreeable or nj whether I am really keen about it or ask you only as! test, it makes no difference; you say you will do it, a! there you shew the fineness of your mind and heart. \ stupid friend would have started a discussion.” Which was exactly what he had just been doing; Et perhaps I wanted to flatter his self-esteem; perhaps a I was sincere, the sole touchstone of merit seeming to} to be the extent to which a friend could be useful in| spect of the one thing that seemed to me to have any 1 portance, namely my love. Then I went on, perhaps frc 132 mning, possibly from a genuine increase of affection in- ired by gratitude, expectancy, and the copy of Mme. de (uermantes’s very features which nature had made in pro- acing her nephew Robert: “But, I say, we mustn’t hep them waiting any longer, and I’ve mentioned only ile of the two things I wanted to ask you, the less im- prtant; the other is more important to me, but I’m raid you will never consent. Would it bore you if we ere to call each other tu?” “Bore me? My dear fellow! Joy! Tears of joy! Un- eamed-of happiness!” “Thank you—tu I mean; you begin first—ever so juch. It is such a pleasure to me that you needn’t do iything about Mme. de Guermantes if you’ld rather not, tis is quite enough for me.” “T can do both.” “say, Robert! Listen to me a minute,” I said to him ler while we were at dinner. “Oh, it’s really too absurd (2 way our conversation is always being interrupted, I We think why—you remember the lady I was speaking you about just now.” THE GUERMANTES WAY : i“ Yes.” “You’re quite sure you know who’ I mean?” “Why, what do you take me for, a village idiot?” “You wouldn’t care to give me her photograph, I ppose? ” 1p had meant to ask him only for the loan of it. But ten the time came to speak I felt shy, I decided that the quest was indiscreet, and in order to hide my confusion Dut the question more bluntly, and increased my de- ind, as if it had been quite natural. “No; I should have to ask her permission first,” was 133 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST his answer. | He blushed as he spoke. I could see that he had a rese vation in his mind, that he credited me also with on that he would give only a partial service to my love, und! the restraint of certain moral principles, and for this hated him. | At the same time I was touched to see how different Saint-Loup behaved towards me now that I was no long alone with him, and that his friends formed an audienc His increased affability would have left me cold had. thought that it was deliberately assumed; but I could f that it was spontaneous and consisted only of all that | had to say about me in my absence and refrained as, rule from saying when we were together by ourselv In our private conversations I might certainly suspe the pleasure that he found in talking to me, but th pleasure he almost always left unexpressed. Now, at t same remarks from me which, as a rule, he enjoyed wit out shewing it, he watched from the corner of his eye see whether they produced on his friends the effect : which he had counted, an effect corresponding to what had promised them beforehand. The mother of a girl’ her first season could be no more unrelaxing in her atte tion to her daughter’s responses and to the attitude of t public. If I had made some remark at which, alone my company, he would merely have smiled, he was afré that the others might not have seen the point, and p in a “ What’s that?” to make me repeat what I had sa to attract attention, and turning at once to his frien and making himself automatically, by facing them w a hearty laugh, the fugleman of their laughter, pi sented me for the first time with the opinion that 134 I | \ THE GUERMANTES WAY ctually held of me and must often have expressed to aem. So that I caught sight of myself suddenly from rithout, like a person who reads his name in a newspaper r sees himself in a mirror. ‘ It occurred to me, one of these evenings, to tell a mildly musing story about Mme. Blandais, but I stopped at ace, remembering that Saint-Loup knew it already, and hat when I had tried to tell him it on the day following y arrival he had interrupted me with: “You told me iat before, at Balbec.” I was surprised, therefore, to find m begging me to go on and assuring me that he did %t know the story, and that it would amuse him im- ensely. “ You’ve forgotten it for the moment,” I said ‘him, “but you'll remember as I go on.” “No, really; ‘swear you’re mistaken. You’ve never told me. Do go 4” And throughout the story he fixed a feverish and wwaptured gaze alternately on myself and on his friends. realised only after I had finished, amid general laughter, sat it had struck him that this story would give his lends a good idea of my wit, and that it was for this ason that he had pretended not to know it. Such is the aff of friendship. On the third evening, one of his friends, to whom I d not had an opportunity before of speaking, conversed ‘th me at great length; and I overheard him telling int-Loup how much he had been enjoying himself. And deed we sat talking together almost all evening, leaving T glasses of sauterne untouched on the table before us, slated, sheltered from the others by the sumptous cur- ‘ns of one of those intuitive sympathies between man d man which, when they are not based upon any physi- | attraction, are the only kind that is altogether mys- 135 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST terious. Of such an enigmatic nature had seemed to me at Balbec, that feeling which Saint-Loup had for me, whic} was not to be confused with the interest of our conversa tions, a feeling free from any material association, in visible, intangible, and yet a thing of the presence o) which in himself, like a sort of inflammatory gas, he ha been so far conscious as to refer to it with a smile. An¢ yet there was perhaps something more surprising still i this sympathy born here in a single evening, like a flowe that had budded and opened in a few minutes in thi warmth of this little-room. I could not help asking Rober when he spoke to me about Balbec whether it were reall) settled that he was to marry Mlle. d’Ambresac. He as sured me that not only was it not settled, but there ha/ never been any thought of such a match, he had neve| seen her, he did not know who she was. If at that momen! I had happened to see any of the social gossipers who hay told me of this coming event, they would promptly hav announced the betrothal of Mlle. d’Ambresac to som one who was not Saint-Loup and that of Saint-Loup t| some one who was not Mlle. d’Ambresac. I should hav surprised them greatly had I reminded them of their in compatible and still so recent predictions. In order the this little game may continue, and multiply false repo | by attaching the greatest possible number to every nam) in turn, nature has furnished those who play it with | memory as short as their credulity is long. Saint-Loup had spoken to me of another of his friend who was present also, one with whom he was on pal ticularly good terms just then, since they were the onl two advocates in their mess of the retrial of Dreyfus. | Just as a brother of this friend of Saint-Loup, who ha 136 —<—_ - THE GUERMANTES WAY yeen trained at the Schola Cantorum, thought about every yew musical work not at all what his father, his mother, is cousins, his club friends thought, but exactly what the jther students thought at the Schola, so this non-com- aissioned nobleman (of whom Bloch formed an extraor. \inary opinion when I told him about him, because, ouched to hear that he belonged to the same party as imself, he nevertheless imagined him on account of his iristocratic birth and religious and military upbringing 9 be as different as possible, endowed with the same omantic attraction as a native of a distant country) had | “mentality”, as people were now beginning to say, nalogous to that of the whole body of Dreyfusards in eneral and of Bloch in particular, on which the traditions f his family and the interests of his career could retain © hold whatever. Similarly one of Saint-Loup’s cousins ad married a young Eastern princess who was said to ‘Tite poetry quite as fine as Victor Hugo’s or Alfred de jigny’s, and in spite of this was supposed to have a ifferent type of mind from what one would naturally pect, the mind of an Eastern princess immured in an wabian Nights palace. For the writers who had the tivilege of meeting her was reserved the disappointment ¢ rather the joy of listening to conversation which gave te impression not of Scheherazade but of a person of enius of the type of Alfred de Vigny or Victor Hugo. “That fellow? Oh, he’s not like Saint-Loup, he’s a ‘gular devil,” my new friend informed me; “he’s not ven straight about it. At first, he used to say: ‘ Just wait little, there’s a man I know well, a clever, kind-hearted llow, General de Boisdeffre; you need have no hesita- om in accepting his decision.’ But as soon as he heard 137 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST that Boisdeffre had pronounced Dreyfus guilty, Boisdefirr ceased to count: clericalism, staff prejudices prevented hij forming a candid opinion, although there is no one it the world (or was, rather, before this Dreyfus business) half so clerical as our friend. Next he told us that now we were sure to get the truth, the case had been put ir the hands of Saussier, and he, a soldier of the Republic (our friend coming of an ultra-monarchist family, if you please), was a man of bronze, a stern unyielding con, ‘science. But when Saussier pronounced Esterhazy in nocent, he found fresh reasons to account for the decision) reasons damaging not to Dreyfus but to General Saussie It was the militarist spirit that blinded Saussier (and ! must explain to you that our friend is just as mucl militarist as clerical, or at least he was; I don’t know what to think of him now). His family are all broken hearted at seeing him possessed by such ideas.” | “Don’t you think,” I suggested, turning half toward: Saint-Loup so as not to appear to be cutting myself of from him, as well as towards his friend, and so that wi might all three join in the conversation, “that the in fluence we ascribe to environment is particularly true o intellectual environment. One is the man of one’s idea’ There are far fewer ideas than men, therefore all mei with similar ideas are alike. As there is nothing materia in an idea, so the people who are only materially neigh bours of the man with an idea can do nothing to alter it.) ' At this point I was interrupted by Saint-Loup, becaus another of the young men had leaned across to him wit! a smile and, pointing to me, exclaimed: “ Duroc! Duro| all over!” I had no idea what this might mean, but. felt the expression on the shy young face to be mor — 138 THE GUERMANTES WAY aan friendly. While I was speaking, the approbation of he party seemed to Saint-Loup superfluous; he insisted n silence. And just as a conductor stops his orchestra jth a rap from his baton because some one in the audi- ince has made a noise, so he rebuked the author of this isturbance: “ Gibergue, you must keep your mouth shut vhen people are speaking. You can tell us about it after- ards.” And to me: “ Please go on.” 'I gave a sigh of relief, for I had been afraid that he ras going to make me begin all over again. “And as an idea,” I went on, “is a thing that cannot articipate in human interests and would be incapable of eriving any benefit from them, the men who are governed y an idea are not influenced -by material considerations.” ‘When I had finished, “ That’s one in the eye for you, ty boys,” exclaimed Saint-Loup, who had been follow- ig me with his gaze with the same anxious solicitude as ‘I had been walking upon a tight-rope. “What were ou going to say, Gibergue? ” '“I was just saying that your friend reminded me of fajor Duroc. I seemed to hear hira speaking.” “Why, I’ve often thought so myself,” replied Saint- ‘oup; “they have several points in common, but you'll nd there are a thousand things in this fellow that Duroc asn’t got.” Saint-Loup was not satisfied with this comparison. In a ecstasy of joy, into which there no doubt entered the vy that he felt in making me shine before his friends, ith extreme volubility, stroking me as though he were ibbing down a horse that had just come first past the ost, he reiterated: “ You’re the cleverest man: I know, 2 you hear?” He corrected himself, and added: “ You BaD REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | and Elstir—You don’t mind my bracketing him with you I hope. You understand—punctiliousness. It’s like this: ] Say it to you as one might have said to Balzac: ‘ You ar the greatest novelist of the century—you and Stendhal. Excessive punctiliousness, don’t you know, and at hear an immense admiration. No? You don’t admit Stend. hal?” he went on, with an ingenuous confidence in my judgment which found expression in a charming, smiling) almost childish glance of interrogation from his greer eyes. “Oh, good! I see you’re on my side; Bloch can) stand Stendhal. I think it’s idiotic of him. The Char treuse is after all an immense work, don’t you think? ] am so glad you agree with me. What is it you like bes’ in the Chartreuse, answer me?” he appealed to me with a boyish impetuosity. And the menace of his physica strength made the question almost terrifying. “ Mosca: Fabrice?” I answered timidly that Mosca reminded me . a little of M. de Norpois. Whereupon peals of laughtey from the young Siegfried Saint-Loup. And while I wat going on to explain: “ But Mosca is far more intelligent not so pedantic,” I heard Robert cry: “ Bravo!” actually | clapping his hands, and, helpless with laughter, gasp: “Oh, perfect! Admirable! You really are astounding.” | I took a particular pleasure in talking to this young man, as for that matter to all Robert’s friend d tc Robert himself, about their barracks, the officers he garrison, and the army in general. Thanks to the 1m mensely enlarged scale on which we see the things, how. ever petty they may be, in the midst of which we eat, and talk, and lead our real life; thanks to that formidable enlargement which they undergo, and the effect of whick is that the rest of the world, not being present, can 140 l | | | THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘compete with them, and assumes in comparison the un- -substantiality of a dream, I had begun to take an interest ‘in the various personalities of the barracks, in the officers ‘whom I saw in the square when I went to visit Saint- ‘Loup, or, if I was awake then, when the regiment passed ‘beneath my windows. I should have liked to know more about the major whom Saint-Loup so greatly admired, and about the course of military history which would have appealed to me “even from an aesthetic point of view ”. I knew that with Robert the spoken word was, only too toften, a trifle hollow, but at other times implied the assimilation of valuable ideas which he was fully capable of grasping. Unfortunately, from the military point of wiew Robert was exclusively preoccupied at this time with the case of Dreyfus. He spoke little about it, since he alone of the party at table was a Dreyfusard; the others were violently opposed to the idea of a fresh trial, except my other neighbour, my new friend, and his opinions appeared to be somewhat vague. A firm admirer of the colonel, who was regarded as an exceptionally competent officer and had denounced the current agitation against che Army in several of his regimental orders, which won aim the reputation of being an anti-Dreyfusard, my neigh- pour had heard that his commanding officer had let fall certain remarks which had led to the supposition that : had his doubts as to the guilt of Dreyfus and retained is admiration for Picquart. In the latter respect, at any ate, the rumour of Dreyfusism as applied to the colonel vas as ill-founded as are all the rumours, springing from tone knows where, which float around any great scandal. “or, shortly afterwards, this colonel having been detailed 0 interrogate the former Chief of the Intelligence Branch, 141 Pa 7 r ped | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | had treated him with a brutality and contempt the like of which had never been known before. However thi might be (and naturally he had not taken the liberty of going direct to the colonel for his information), my neighbour had paid Saint-Loup the compliment of telling him—in the tone in which a Catholic lady might tell ¢ Jewish lady that her parish priest denounced the po groms in Russia and might openly admire the generosit} of certain Israelites—that their colonel was not, wit regard to Dreyfusism—to a certain kind of Dreyfusism at least—the fanatical, narrow opponent that he had beer made out to be. “JT am not surprised,’ was Saint-Loup’ S comment “for he’s a sensible man. But in spite of that he is blinded by the De Oe of his caste, and above all by his clericalism. Now,” he turned to me, “ Major Duroc the lecturer on military history I was telling you about there’s a man who is whole-heartedly in support of ou. views, or so I’m told. And I should have been surprisec to hear that he wasn’t, for he’s not only a brilliantly cleve: man, but a Radical-Socialist and a freemason.” Partly out of courtesy to his friends, whom these ex. pressions of Saint-Loup’s faith in Dreyfus made uncom) fortable, and also because the subject was of more interes to myself, I asked my neighbour if it were true that thi major gave a demonstration of military history whic) had a genuine aesthetic beauty. “It is absolutely ri “But what do you mean by that?” “Well, all that you read, let us say, in the narrativ) of a military historian, the smallest facts, the most triviz happenings, are only the outward signs of an idea whic has to be analysed, and which often brings to light othe 142 — | pea io THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘ideas, like a palimpsest. So that you have a field for study as intellectual as any science you care to name, or any art, and one that is satisfying to the mind.” | “Give me an example or two, if you don’t mind.” | “It is not very easy to explain,” Saint-Loup broke in, You read, let us say, that this or that Corps has ‘ied . . . but before we go any farther, the serial ‘umber of the Corps, its order of battle are not without ‘heir significance. If it is not the first time that the opera- ‘ton has been attempted, and if for the same operation ve find a different Corps being brought up, it is perhaps 1 sign that the previous Corps have been wiped out or ave suffered heavy casualties in the said operation; that hey are no longer in a fit state to carry it through suc- ‘essfully. Next, we must ask ourselves what was this Corps which is now out of action; if it was composed of hock troops, held in reserve for big attacks, a fresh Corps if inferior quality will have little chance of succeeding where the first has failed. Furthermore, if we are not at he start of a campaign, this fresh Corps may itself be composite formation of odds and ends withdrawn from ‘ther Corps, which throws a light on the strength of he forces the belligerent still has at his disposal and the ‘Toximity of the moment when his forces shall be defi- itely inferior to the enemy’s, which gives to the operation n which this Corps is about to engage a different mean- ag, because, if it is no longer in a condition to make ood its losses, its successes even will only help mathe- latically to bring it nearer to its ultimate destruction. and then, the serial number of the Corps that it has icing it is of no less significance. If, for instance, it is ‘Much weaker unit, which has already accounted for | 143 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | | several important units of the attacking force, the i, nature of the operation is changed, since, even if it shoul end in the loss of the position which the defending fore has been holding, simply to have held it for any lengil time may be a great success if a very small defendig) force has been sufficient to disable highly important force on the other side. You can understand that if, in th analysis of the Corps engaged on both sides, there ei all these points of importance, the study of the positio itself, of the roads, of the railways which it command; of the lines of communication which it protects, is of t very highest. One must study what I may call the whol geographical context,” he added with a laugh. And ir deed he was so delighted with this expression that, ever time he employed it, even months afterwards, it wa always accompanied by the same laugh. “While th operation is being prepared by one of the belligerents, | you read that one of his patrols has been wiped out 1) the neighbourhood of the position by the other belligeren one of the conclusions which you are entitled to draw | that one side was attempting to reconnoitre the defensis works with which the other intended to resist his attacl An exceptional burst of activity at a given point mal indicate the desire to capture that point, but equally w the desire to hold the enemy in check there, not to rm taliate at the point at which he has attacked you; or | may indeed be only a feint, intended to cover by ani creased activity the relief of troops in that sector. (Whic was a classic feint in Napoleon’s wars.) On the oth hand, to appreciate the significance of any movement, 1 probable object, and, as a corollary, the other movemen by which it will be accompanied or followed, it is n 144 _& <5 THE GUERMANTES WAY mmaterial to consult, not so much the announcements ssued by the Higher Command, which may be intended ° deceive the enemy, to mask a possible check, as the aanual of field operations in use in the country in ques- ‘on. We are always entitled to assume that the manoeuvre yhich an army has attempted to carry out is that pre- cribed by the rules that are applicable to the circum- tances. If, for instance, the rule lays down that a frontal ttack should be accompanied by a flank attack; if, after he flank attack has failed, the Higher Command makes ut that it had no connexion with the main attack and ‘as merely a diversion, there is a strong likelihood that the ‘uth will be found by consulting the rules and not the sports issued from Headquarters. And there are not only te regulations governing each army to be considered, ‘ut their traditions, their habits, their doctrines; the study { diplomatic activities, with their perpetual action or saction upon military activities, must not be neglected ‘ther. Incidents apparently insignificant, which at the me are not understood, will explain to you how the lemy, counting upon a support which these incidents lew to have been withheld, was able to carry out only part of his strategic plan. So that, if you can read ttween the lines of military history, what is a confused mble for the ordinary reader becomes a chain of reason- '§ as straightforward as a picture is for the picture- ver who can see what the person portrayed is wearing id has in his hands, while the visitor hurrying through e gallery is bewildered by a blur of colour which gives ma headache. But just as with certain pictures, in ‘ich it is not enough to observe that the figure is holding chalice, but one must know why the painter chose to | 145 J nd REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST I place a chalice in his hands, what it is intended to sym bolise, so these military operations, apart from their im mediate object, are quite regularly traced, in the mind ¢ the general responsible for the campaign, from the plar. of earlier battles, which we may call the past experienc) the literature, the learning, the etymology, the aristo racy (whichever you like) of the battles of to-day. Ol serve that I am not speaking for the moment of the loca the (what shall I call it?) spatial identity of battles. SS exists also. A battle-field has never been, and never w be throughout the centuries, simply the ground upon wil a particular battle has been fought. If it has been i battle-field, that was because it combined certain cond tions of geographical position, of geological formatifl drawbacks even, of a kind that would obstruct the enen/ (a river, for instance, cutting his force in two), whi made it a good field of battle. And so what it has ber it will continue to be. A painter doesn’t make a stud out of any old room; so you don’t make a battle-field Oo: of any old piece of ground. There are places set apa for the purpose. But, once again, this is not what I wi telling you about; it was the type of battle which o} follows, in a sort of strategic tracing, a tactical imitati¢, if you like. Battles like Ulm, Lodi, Leipzig, Cannaall can’t say whether there is ever going to be another Wi, or what nations are going to fight in it, but, if a war de come, you may be sure that it will include (and deli ately, on the commander’s part) a Cannae, an Austerli a Rosbach, a Waterloo. Some of our people say qu? openly that Marshal von Schieffer and General Falke hausen have prepared a Battle of Cannae against Fran, in the Hannibal style, pinning their enemy down alo} 146 THE GUERMANTES WAY jis whole front, and advancing on both flanks, especially hrough Belgium, while Bernhardi prefers the oblique rder of Frederick the Great, Lenthen rather than Can- jae. Others expound their views less crudely, but I can all you one thing, my boy, that Beauconseil, the squad- on commander I introduced you to the other day, who an officer with a very great future before him, has wotted up a little Pratzen attack of his own; he knows inside out, he is keeping it up his sleeve, and if he vet has an opportunity to put it into practice he will ake a clean job of it and let us have it on a big scale. he break through in the centre at Rivoli, too; that’s thing that will crop up if there’s ever another war. ’s no more obsolete than the Jliad. I must add that © are practically condemned to make frontal attacks, *cause we can’t afford to repeat the mistake we made / Seventy; we must assume the offensive, and nothing se. The only thing that troubles me is that if I see ly the slower, more antiquated minds among us oppos- g this splendid doctrine, still, one of the youngest of iy Masters, who is a genius, I mean Mangin, would like j to leave room, provisionally of course, for the de- jasive. It is not very easy to answer him when he cites i¢ example of Austerlitz, where the defence was merely orelude to attack and victory.” ‘The enunciation of these theories by Saint-Loup made + happy. They gave me to hope that perhaps I was t being led astray, in my life at Donciéres, with regard these officers whom I used to hear being discussed ule I sat sipping a sauterne which bathed them in its arming golden glint, by the same magnifying power tich had swollen to such enormous proportions in my 147 -- / REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST eyes while I was at Balbec the King and Queen of tl South Sea Island, the little group of the four epicure the young gambler, Legrandin’s brother-in-law, nec shrunken so in my view as to appear non-existent. Wh gave me pleasure to-day would not, perhaps, leave r indifferent to-morrow, as had always happened hithert the creature that I still was at this moment was not, pe haps, doomed to immediate destruction, since to t ardent and fugitive passion which I had felt on them few evenings for everything connected with military lig Saint-Loup, by what he had just been saying to n | touching the art of war, added an intellectual foundat | of a permanent character, capable of attaching me itself so strongly that I might, without any attempt § deceive myself, feel assured that after I had left Donciég i should continue to take an interest in the work of ij friends there, and should not be long in coming to py quite sure that this art of war was indeed an art in " true sense of the word: i “You interest me—I beg your pardon, tu interest @ enormously,” I said to Saint-Loup, “but tell me, th is one point that puzzles me. I feel that I could be kee thrilled by the art of strategy, but if so I must first sure that it is not so very different from the other a that knowing the rules is not everything. You tell | that plans of battles are copied. I do find somethif aesthetic, just as you said, in seeing beneath a modern If tle the plan of an older one, I can’t tell you how attracl) it sounds. But then, does the genius of the commant count for nothing? Does he really do no more than apy the rules? Or, in point of science, are there great gene| 148 THE GUERMANTES WAY. as there are great surgeons, who, when the symptoms exhibited by two states of ill-health are identical to the jutward eye, nevertheless feel, for some infinitesimal eason, founded perhaps on their experience, but inter- mreted afresh, that in one case they ought to do one hing, in another case another; that in one case it js better © operate, in another to wait?” 0k at Austerlitz, or in 1806 take his instructions to. Piannes. But you will find certain generals slavishly Mitating one of Napoleon’s movements and arriving at | diametrically opposite result. There are 4 dozen exam- les of that in 1870. But even for the interpretation of hat the enemy may do, what he actually does is only ‘Symptom which may mean any number of different angs. Each of them has an equal chance of being the Pzht thing, if one looks only to reasoning and science, just in certain difficult cases all the medical science in the porld will be powerless to decide whether the invisible ght to be performed. It is his instinct, his divination— e Mme. de Thebes (you follow me?)—which decides, \the great general as in the great doctor. Thus I’ve en telling you, to take one instance, what might be Jant by a reconnaissance on the eve of a battle. But it Y mean a dozen other things also, such as to make ‘enemy think you are going to attack him at one point €reas you intend to attack him at another, to put out creen which will prevent him from seeing the prepara- as for your real operation, to force him to bring up 149 ye REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST fresh troops, to hold them, to immobilise them in a dif. ferent place from where they are needed, to form a1 estimate of the forces at his disposal, to feel him, to fore him to shew his hand. Sometimes, indeed, the fact tha you employ an immense number of troops in an opera tion is by no means a proof that that is your true objec tive; for you may be justified in carrying it out, even i it is only a feint, so that your feint may have a bette chance of deceiving the enemy. If I had time now to g through the Napoleonic wars from this point of view, assure you that these simple classic movements whic| we study here, and which you will come and see U practising in the field, just for the pleasure of a wall| you young rascal—no, I know you’re not well, I apologis¢ —well, in a war, when you feel behind you the vigilane the judgment, the profound study of the Higher Con mand, you are as much moved by them as by the simp) lamps of a lighthouse, only a material combustion, but 4 emanation of the spirit, sweeping through space to wall ships of danger. I may have been wrong, perhaps, / speaking to you only of the literature of war. In realit) as the formation of the soil, the direction of wind ar! light tell us which way a tree will grow, so the conditioy in which a campaign is fought, the features of the count| through which you march, prescribe, to a certain exter) and limit the number of the plans among which ti general has to choose. Which means that along a mou: tain range, through a system of valleys, over certa) plains, it is almost with the inevitability and the treme; dous beauty of an avalanche that you can forecast t line of an army on the march.” “ Now you deny me that freedom of choice in the col 150 THE GUERMANTES WAY aander, that power of divination in the enemy who is ‘tying to discover his plan, which you allowed me a 1oment ago.” { “Not at all. You remember that book of philosophy ve read together at Balbec, the richness of the world of \ ossibilities compared with the real world. Very well. It the same again with the art of strategy. In a given yituation there will be four plans that offer themselves, Yne of which the general has to choose, as a disease may ie through various phases for which the doctor has to atch. And here again the weakness and greatness of /ae human elements are fresh causes of uncertainty. For [ these four plans let us assume that contingent reasons ysuch as the attainment of minor objects, or time, which "tay be pressing, or the smallness of his effective strength ind shortage of rations) lead the general to prefer the tst, which is less perfect, but less costly also to carry ut, is more rapid, and has for its terrain a richer ountry for feeding his troops. He may, after having egun with this plan, which the enemy, uncertain at icst, will soon detect, find that success lies beyond his ‘asp, the difficulties being too great (that is what I call jie element of human weakness), abandon it and try Hie second or third or fourth. But it may equally be that > has tried the first plan (and this is what I call human jeatness) merely as a feint to pin down the enemy, }}) as to surprise him later at a point where he has not *en expecting an attack. Thus at Ulm, Mack, who ex- pected the enemy to advance from the west, was sur- funded from the north where he thought he was per- ctly safe. My example is not a very good one, as a jatter of fact. And Ulm is a better type of enveloping 151 | | | SS REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | battle, which the future will see reproduced, because j) is not only a classic example from which generals wi seek inspiration, but a form that is to some extent neces sary (one of several necessities, which leaves room fo choice, for variety) like a type of crystallisation. But j | doesn’t much matter, really, because these conditions a after all artificial. To go back to our philosophy book it is like the rules of logic or scientific laws, reality doe| conform to it more or less, but bear in mind that th great mathematician Poincaré is by no means certai that mathematics are strictly accurate. As to the rule themselves, which I mentioned to you, they are of se¢ ondary importance really, and besides they are altere from time to time. We cavalrymen, for instance, have t go by the Field Service of 1895, which, you may say, ] out of date since it is based on the old and obsolet doctrine which maintains that cavalry warfare has littl more than a moral effect, in the panic that the charg creates in the enemy. Whereas the more intelligent ¢ our teachers, all the best brains in the cavalry, and par ticularly the major I was telling you about, anticipate 0 the contrary that the decisive victory will be obtained b a real hand to hand encounter in which our weapons. wi be sabre and lance and the side that can hold out longe will win, not simply morally and by creating panic, bu materially.” # “Saint-Loup is quite right, and it is probable that th next Field Service will shew signs of this evolution,” pu in my other neighbour. : “IT am not ungrateful for your support, for you opinions Gert to make more impression upon my frien than mine,” said Saint-Loup with a smile, whether becaus 152 THE GUERMANTES WAY te growing attraction between his comrade and myself anoyed him slightly or because he thought it graceful » solemnise it with this official confirmation. “ Perhaps may have underestimated the importance of the rules; ‘don’t know. They do change, that must be admitted. ut in the mean time they control the military situation, te plans of campaign and concentration. If they reflect “false conception of strategy they may be the principal ause of defeat. All this is a little too technical for you,” 2 remarked to me. “ After all, you may say that what des most to accelerate the evolution of the art of war wars themselves. In the course of a campaign, if it is : all long, you will see one belligerent profiting by the ssons furnished him by the successes and mistakes, erfecting the methods of the other, who will improve a him in turn. But all that is a thing of the past. With te terrible advance of artillery, the wars of the future, ‘there are to be any more wars, will be so short that, tfore we have had time to think of putting our lessons ito practice, peace will have been signed.” ““Don’t be so touchy,” I told Saint-Loup, reverting to le first words of this speech. “I was listening to you uite eagerly.” “Tf you will billy not fly into a passion, and will low me to speak,” his friend went on, “I shall add » what you have just been saying that if battles copy and vincide with one another it is not merely due to the ind of the commander. It may happen that a mistake 1 his part (for instance, his failure to appreciate the rength of the enemy) will lead him to call upon his men i extravagant sacrifices, sacrifices which certain units ill make with an abnegation so sublime that their part 153 « | | | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST in the battle will be analogous to that played by som other unit in some other battle, and these will be quote in history as interchangeable examples: to stick to 18% we have the Prussian Guard at Saint-Privat, and th Turcos at Freeschviller and Wissembourg.” “Ah! Interchangeable; very neat! Excellent! The la has brains,” was Saint-Loup’s comment. | I was not unmoved by these last examples, as alway when, beneath the particular instance, I was afforde a glimpse of the general law. Still, the genius of th commander, that was what interested me, I was anxiov to discover in what it consisted, what steps, in given cil cumstances, when the commander who lacked geniu could not withstand the enemy, the inspired leader woul: take to re-establish his jeopardised position, which, a¢ cording to Saint-Loup, was quite possible and had bee done by Napoleon more than once. And to understan what military worth meant I asked for comparisons be tween the various generals whom I knew by name, whic: of them had most markedly the character of a leader, th gifts of a tactician; at the risk of boring my new friends who however shewed no signs of boredom, but continue’ to answer me with an inexhaustible good-nature. | I felt myself isolated, not only from the great, freezin night which extended far around us and in which we hear from time to time the whistle of a train which onl} rendered more keen the pleasure of being where we were or the chime of an hour which, happily, was still a lon! way short of that at which these young men would hav to buckle on their sabres and go, but also from all m) external obsessions, almost from the memory of Mme. d: Guermantes, by the hospitality of Saint-Loup, to whicl 154 ; | i | —— THE GUERMANTES WAY shat of his friends, reinforcing it, gave, so to speak, a yreater solidity; by the warmth also of this little dining- yoom, by the savour of the well-chosen dishes that were het before us. They gave as much pleasure to my imagin- ition as to my appetite; sometimes the little piece of still iife from which they had been taken, the rugged holy water stoup of the oyster in which lingered a few drops of brackish water, or the knotted stem, the yellow leaves of a bunch of grapes still enveloped them, inedible, poetic and remote as a landscape, and producing, at different doints in the course of the meal, the impressions of rest im the shade of a vine and of an excursion out to sea; on other evenings it was the cook alone who threw into belief these original properties of our food, which he presented in its natural setting, like a work of art; and 2 fish cooked in wine was brought in on a long earthen- ware dish, on which, as it stood out in relief on a bed of oluish herbs, unbreakable now but still contorted from aaving been dropped alive into boiling water, surrounded oy a circle of satellite creatures in their shells, crabs, shrimps and mussels, it had the appearance of being part of a ceramic design by Bernard Palissy. “TI am jealous, furious,” Saint-Loup attacked me, half miling, half in earnest, alluding to the interminable con- yersations aside which I had been having with his friend. “Ts it because you find him more intelligent than me; U do you like him better than me? Well, I suppose he’s 2verything now, and no one else is to have a look in!” Men who are enormously in love with a woman, who live nm the society of woman-lovers, allow themselves pleasan- ries on which others, who would see less innocence in ‘hem, would never venture. 155 | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST When the conversation became general, they avoide any reference to Dreyfus for fear of offending Saint-Loup The following week, however, two of his friends wer remarking what a curious thing it was that, living in s¢ military an atmosphere, he was so keen a Dreyfusard almost an anti-militarist: “The reason is,” I suggested not wishing to enter into details, “that the influence o environment is not so important as people think .. .” | intended of course to stop at this point, and not t reiterate the observations which I had made to Saint Loup a few days earlier. Since, however, I had repeatec these words almost textually, I proceeded to excus¢ myself by adding: “As, in fact, I was saying the ott day ...” But I had reckoned without the revers¢ side of Robert’s polite admiration of myself and certair| other persons. That admiration reached its fulfilmen’ in so entire an assimilation of their ideas that, in the course of a day or two, he would have completely forgot ten that those ideas were not his own. And s0, in the matter of my modest theory, Saint-Loup, for all the worl as. though it had always dwelt in his own brain, anc, as though I were merely poaching on his preserves, fel it incumbent upon him to greet my discovery with warm approval. | “Why, yes; environment is of no importance.” Ki And with as much vehemence as if he were afraid of my interrupting, or failing to understand him: “The real influence is that of one’s intellectual environ ment! One is the man of one’s idea! ” He stopped for a moment, with the satisfied-smile of one who has digested his dinner, dropped his eyeglass and, fixing me with a gimlet-like stare: bs 156 | THE GUERMANTES WAY “All men with similar ideas are alike,” he informed &; with a challenging air. Probably he had completely tgotten that I myself had said to him, only a few days lier, what on the other hand he remembered so well. -I did not arrive at Saint-Loup’s restaurant every eve- ng in the same state of mind. If a memory, a sorrow at weigh on us are able to leave us so effectively that 2 are no longer aware of them, they can also return ad sometimes remain with us for a long time. ‘here are evenings when, as I passed through the town on y way to the restaurant, I felt so keen a longing for ime. de Guermantes that I could scarcely breathe; you ight have said that part of my breast had Geen cut yen by a skilled anatomist, taken out, and replaced by 1 equal part of immaterial suffering, by an equivalent ad of longing and love. And however neatly the wound ay have been stitched together, there is not much com- tt in life when regret het the loss of another person | substituted for one’s entrails, it seems to be occupying ‘ore room than they, one feels it perpetually, and be- des, what a contradiction in terms to be obliged to ‘mk a part of one’s body. Only it seems that we are ‘orth more, somehow. At the whisper of a breeze we zh, from oppression, but from weariness also. I would ok up at the sky. If it were clear, I would say to my- lf: “Perhaps she is in the country; she is looking at e@ same stars; and, for all I know, when I arrive at the ‘staurant Robert may say to me: “Good news! I have st heard from my aunt; she wants to meet you; she is ‘ming down here.’” It was not in the firmament alone fat I enshrined the thought of Mme. de Guermantes. | passing breath of air, more fragrant than the rest, 157 | : REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST seemed to bring me a message from her, as, long at from Gilberte in the cornfields of Meséglise. We do r change; we introduce into the feeling with which ’ regard a person many slumbering elements which th feeling revives but which are foreign to it. Besides, Wi these feelings for particular people, there is always som thing in us that is trying to bring them nearer to t truth, that is to say, to absorb them in a more genel feeling, common to the whole of humanity, with “a people and the suffering that they cause us are mere a means to enable us to communicate. What prong certain pleasure into my grief was that I knew it to a tiny fragment of the universal love. Simply because thought that I recognised sorrows which I had felt ( Gilberte’s account, or else when in the evenings at Cor. bray Mamma would not stay in any room, and also t: memory of certain pages of Bergotte, in the agony | | now felt, to which Mme. de Guermantes, her coldnes her absence, were not clearly linked, as cause is to effe| in the mind of a philosopher, I did not conclude th’ Mme. de Guermantes was not the cause of that ago Is there not such a thing as a diffused bodily pai extending, radiating out into other parts, which, howeve it leaves, to vanish altogether, if the practitioner lays h finger on the precise spot from which it springs? Ar yet, until that moment, its extension gave it for us § vague, so fatal a semblance that, powerless to expla’ or even to locate it, we imagined that there was possibility of its being healed. As I made my way the restaurant I said to myself: “A fortnight alrea since I last saw Mme. de Guermantes.” A fortnight whic did not appear so enormous an interval save to me, wh 158 THE GUERMANTES WAY then Mme. de Guermantes was concerned, reckoned time ly minutes. For me it was no longer the stars and the reeze merely, but the arithmetical divisions of time that ssumed a dolorous and poetic aspect. Each day now was ke the loose crest of a crumbling mountain, down one ide of which I felt that I could fleaeeael into oblivion, ut down the other was borne by the necessity of seeing ae Duchess again. And I was continually inclining one ray or the other, having no stable equilibrium. One day | said to myself: “Perhaps there will be a letter to- ight; ’’ and on entering the dining-room I found cour- ee to ask Saint-Loup: “You don’t happen to have had any news from Paris?” “Yes,” he replied gloomily; “bad news.” iI Beeatlied a sigh of relief when I realised that it was nly he who was unhappy, and that the news came from is mistress. But I soon saw that one of its consequences iiald be to prevent Robert, for ever so long, from taking t€ to see his aunt. I learned that a quarrel had broken out between him ad his mistress, through the post presumably, unless ne had come down to pay him a flying visit between vains. And the quarrels, even when relatively slight, hich they had previously had, had always seemed as Mpgh they must prove insoluble. For she was a girl ‘violent temper, who would stamp her foot and burst ito tears for reasons as incomprehensible as those that cake children shut themselves into dark cupboards, not yme out for dinner, refuse to give any explanation, ad only redouble their sobs when, our patience exhausted, e Visit them with a whipping. To say that Saint-Loup iffered terribly from this estrangement would be an 159 | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST understatement of the truth, which would give the read: a false impression of his grief. When he found himse alone, the only picture in his mind being that of h mistress parting from him with the respect which st had felt for him at the sight of his energy, the anxietic which he had had at first gave way before the irreparabl| and the cessation of an anxiety is so pleasant a thin that the rupture, once it was certain, assumed for hi something of the same kind of charm as a reconciliatio; What he began to suffer from, a little later, was a secon ary and accidental grief, the tide of which flowed a santly from his own heart, at the idea that perhaps sh would be glad to make it up, that it was not inconceivab| that she was waiting for a word from him, that in th mean time, to be avenged on him, she would perhay, on a certain evening, in a certain place, do a certain thin) and that he had only to telegraph to her that he ri coming for it not to happen, that others perhaps well taking advantage of the time which he was letting shi and that in a few days it would be too late to recaptu her, for she would be already bespoke. Among all they possibilities he was certain of nothing; his mistress pr served a silence which wrought him up to such a frenz| of grief that he began to ask himself whether she migl _not be in hiding at Donciéres, or have sailed for the Indie It has been said that silence is a force; in another an widely different sense it is a tremendous force in th hands of those who are loved. It increases the anxiet of the lover who has to wait. Nothing so tempts us t approach another person as what is keeping us apart and what barrier is there so insurmountable as silence It has been said also that silence is a torture, capable ¢ 160 THE GUERMANTES WAY | | | | ading to madness him who is condemned to it in a ison cell, But what a torture—keener than that of lving to keep silence—to have to endure the silence / the person one loves! Robert asked himself: “What in she be doing, never to send me a single word, like lis? She hates me, perhaps, and will always go on hating i And he reproached himself. Thus her silence did Jeed drive him mad with jealousy and remorse. Be- les, more cruel than the silence of prisons, that kind silence is in itself a prison. An immaterial enclosure, admit, but impenetrable, this interposed slice of empty mosphere through which, despite its emptiness, the sual rays of the ah araitae lover cannot pass. Is there ‘more terrible illumination than that of silence which ‘ews us not one absent love but a thousand, and shews peach of them in the act of indulging in some fresh ‘trayal? Sometimes, in an abrupt relaxation of his strain, obert would imagine that this period of silence was just ‘ming to an end, that the long expected letter was on way. He saw it, it arrived, he started at every sound, 3 thirst was already quenched, he murmured: “The ter! The letter!” After this glimpse of a phantom sis of affection, he found himself once more toiling ross the real desert of a silence without end. ‘He suffered in anticipation, without a single omission, _ the griefs and pains of a rupture which at other dments he fancied he might somehow contrive to avoid, e people who put all their affairs in order with a view a migration abroad which they never make, whose ‘nds, no longer certain where they will find themselves ‘img next day, flutter helplessly for the time being, ‘tached from them, like a heart that is taken out of a I P61 - K REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST dying man and continues to beat, though disjoined fr the rest of his body. Anyhow, this hope that his mistr would return gave him courage to persevere in the ruptt as the belief that one will return alive from the bat helps one to face death. And inasmuch as habit is,| all the plants of human growth, the one that has le need of nutritious soil in order to live, and is the f to appear upon what is apparently the most barren ro perhaps had he begun by effecting their rupture : feint he would in the end have grown genuinely acc tomed to it. But his uncertainty kept him in a state emotion which, linked with the memory of the wom herself, was akin to love. He forced himself, neverthele not to write to her, thinking perhaps that it was a } cruel torment to live without his mistress than with ]} in certain conditions, or else that, after the way in i they had parted, it was necessary to wait for excui from her, if she was to keep what he believed her| feel for him in the way, if not of love, at any rate | esteem and regard. He contented himself with going: the telephone, which had recently been installed at Dc ciéres, and asking for news from, or giving instructic: to a lady’s maid whom he had procured and placed w his friend. These communications were, as it turned o complicated and took up much of his time, since, }: fluenced by what her literary friends preached to k about the ugliness of the capital, but principally for t sake of her animals, her dogs, her monkey, her canar and her parrokeet, whose incessant din her Paris lan lord had declined to tolerate for another moment, ‘R ert’s mistress had now taken a little house in the neig bourhood of Versailles. Meanwhile he, down at Do 162 THE GUERMANTES WAY éres, no longer slept a wink all night. Once, in my yom, overcome by exhaustion, he dozed off for a little. ut suddenly he began to talk, tried to get up and run, » stop something from happening, said: “I hear her; ou shan’t ... you shan’t....’ He awoke. He had ven dreaming, he explained to me, that he was in the puntry with the serjeant-major. His host had tried to sep him away from a certain part of the house. Saint- oup had discovered that the serjeant-major had stay- g with him a subaltern, extremely rich and extremely cious, whom he knew to have a violent passion for his istress. And suddenly in his dream he had distinctly tard the spasmodic, regular cries which his mistress as in the habit of uttering at the moment of grati- tation. He had tried to force the serjeant-major to ke him to the room in which she was. And the other id held him back, to keep him from going there, with 1 air of annoyance at such a want of discretion in a test which, Robert said, he would never be able to rget. “Tt was an idiotic dream,” he concluded, still quite eathless. \All the same I could see that, during the hour that llowed, he was more than once on the point of telephon- g to his mistress to beg for a reconciliation. My father id now had the telephone for some time at home, but doubt whether that would have been of much use to ant-Loup. Besides, it hardly seemed to me quite proper 'make my parents, or even a mechanical instrument stalled in their house, play pander between Saint-Loup d his mistress, ladylike and high-minded as the latter ght be. His bad dream began to fade from his memory. | 163 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST : With a fixed and absent stare, he came to see nel each of those cruel days which traced in my mind ; they followed one after the other the splendid sweep | a staircase forged in hard metal on which Robert stoc asking himself what decision his friend was. going to tak At length she wrote to ask whether he would coun to forgive her. As soon as he realised that a defini rupture had been avoided he saw all the disadvantag of a reconciliation. Besides, he had already begun suffer less acutely, and had almost accepted a grief t sharp tooth of which he would have, in a few mont] perhaps, to feel again if their i intimacy were to be i He did not hesitate for long. And perhaps he hesitate only because he was now certain of being able to reca' ture his mistress, of being able to do it and therefo, of doing it. Only she asked him, so that she might har time to recover her equanimity, not to come to Paris» | the New Year. Now he had not the heart to go to Pat without seeing her. On the other hand, she had declari her willingness to go abroad with him, but for that] | would need. to make a formal application for leave, whit Captain de Borodino was unwilling to grant. “Pm sorry about it, because of your meeting with n aunt, which will have to be put off. I dare say I she be in Paris at Easter.” i “We shan’t be able to call on Mme. de Guermaill then, because I shall have gone to Balbec. ae really, | nator matter in the least, I assure you.” | “To Balbec? But you didn’t go there till August.” “I know; but next year they’re making me go the: earlier, for my health.” | All that he feared was that I might form a bad i impre 164 THE GUERMANTES WAY on of his mistress, after what he had told me. “She is olent simply because she is too frank, too thorough in sr feelings. But she is a sublime creature. You can’t aagine what exquisite poetry there is in her. She goes very year to spend All Souls’ Day at Bruges. ‘Nice’ : her, don’t you think? If you ever do meet her you'll te what I mean; she has a greatness. . . .” And, as he as infected with certain of the mannerisms used in the serary circles in which the lady moved: “There is omething sidereal about her, in fact something bardic; yu know what I mean, the poet merging into the priest.” I was searching all through dinner for a pretext which ould enable Saint-Loup to ask his aunt to see me with- It my having to wait until he came to Paris. Now such /pretext was furnished by the desire that I had to see me more pictures by Elstir, the famous painter whom uint-Loup and I had met at Balbec. A pretext behind hich there was, moreover, an element of truth, for if, i my visits to Elstir, what I had asked of his painting id been that it should lead me to the comprehension id love of things better than itself, a real thaw, an Ithentic square in a country town, live women on a rach (all the more would I have commissioned from it € portraits of the realities which I had not been able ‘fathom, such as a lane of hawthorn-blossoms, not so juch that it might perpetuate their beauty for me as that “might reveal that beauty to me), now, on the other ind, it was the originality, the seductive attraction of Ose paintings that aroused my desire, and what I anted above anything else was to look at other pictures r Elstir. It seemed to me, also, that the least of his pictures were 165 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | : something quite different from the masterpieces even greater painters than himself. His work was like a reall apart, whose frontiers were not to be passed, matchle in substance. Eagerly collecting the infrequent periodica in which articles on him and his work had appeared, had learned that it was only recently that he had begu to paint landscapes and still life, and that he had starte with mythological subjects (I had seen photographs « two of these in his studio), and had then been for lor under the influence of Japanese art. | Several of the works most characteristic of his vario1 manners were scattered about the provinces. A certa house at Les Andelys, in which there was one of h finest landscapes, seemed to me as precious, gave me i keen a desire to go there and see it as did a village } the Chartres district, among whose millstone walls wi enshrined a glorious painted window; and towards tl possessor of this treasure, towards the man who, insi¢ his ugly house, on the main street, closeted like a astrologer, sat questioning one of those mirrors of tl world which Elstir’s pictures were, and who had perhay bought it for many thousands of francs, I felt myse borne by that instinctive sympathy which joins the vel hearts, the inmost natures of those who think alike up¢ a vital subject. Now three important works by m favourite painter were described in one of these articl as belonging to Mme. de Guermantes. So that it was, afti all, quite sincerely that, on the evening on which | Loup told me of his lady’s projected visit to Bruges, | was able, during dinner, in front of his friends, to ) fall, as though on the spur of the moment: : “Listen, if you don’t mind. Just one last word on tl 166 | THE GUERMANTES WAY abject of the lady we were speaking about. You remem- ‘er Elstir, the painter I met at Balbec?” } «« Why, of course I do.” 6 You remember how much I admired his work?” “TJ do, quite well; and the letter we sent him.” Peas Very well, one of the reasons—not one of the chief sasons, a subordinate reason—why I should like to meet ae said lady—you do know who’ I mean, don’t you?” '“Of course I do. How involved youre getting.” “Ts that she has in her house one very fine picture, + least, by Elstir.” 7 “Tsay, I never knew that.” “Elstir will probably be at Balbec at Easter; you aow he stays down there now all the year round, prac- cally. I should very much like to have seen this pedis: sfore I leave Paris. I don’t know whether you’re on ifficiently intimate terms with your aunt: but couldn’t du manage, somehow, to give her so good an impression * me that she won’t tics and then ask her if she’ll 't me come and see the picture without you, since you ‘on’t be there? ” ““That’s all right. Vl answer for her; I’ll make a recial point of it.” “Oh, Robert, you are an angel; I do love you.” Rit’s very nice of you to love me, but it would be pally nice if you were to call me tu, as you promised, aid as you began to do.” bey hope it’s not your departure that you two are otting together,” one of Robert’s friends said to me. You know, if Saint-Loup does go on leave, it needn’t ake any. difference, we shall still be here. It will be ss amusing for you, perhaps, but we’ll do all we can 167 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST to make you forget his absence.” As a matter of face! just as we had decided that Robert’s mistress would hav to go to Bruges by herself, the news came that Captain d Borodino, obdurate hitherto in his refusal, had give authority for Serjeant Saint-Loup to proceed on lon leave to Bruges. What had happened was this. c Prince, extremely proud of his luxuriant head of hair was an assiduous customer of the principal hairdresser i the town, who had started life as a boy under Napoleo III’s barber. Captain de Borodino was on the best ¢ terms with the hairdresser, being, in spite of his ai of majesty, quite simple in his dealings with his inferiors But the hairdresser, through whose books the Prince’ account had been running without payment for at leas five years, swollen no less by bottles of Portugal and Ea’ des Souverains, irons, razors, and strops, than by th ordinary charges for shampooing, haircutting and th like, had a greater respect for Saint-Loup, who alway paid on the nail and kept several carriages and “4 horses. Having learned of Saint-Loup’s vexation at ne being able to go with his mistress, he had spoken strongl about it to the Prince at a moment when he was trusse! up in a white surplice with his head held firmly over th back of the chair and his throat menaced by a razor. Thi narrative of a young man’s gallant adventures won fror the princely captain a smile of Bonapartish indulgence’ It is hardly probable that he thought of his unpaid bil but the barber’s recommendation tended to put him 1 as good a humour as one from a duke would have Pp him in a bad. While his chin was still smothered in SOay the leave was promised, and the warrant was signed the evening. As for the hairdresser, who was in the hab: 168 | | | | THE GUERMANTES WAY f boasting all day long of his own exploits, and in order 2 do so claimed for himself, shewing an astonishing fac- Ity for lying, distinctions that were pure fabrications, vaving for once rendered this signal service to Saint-Loup, ‘ot only did he refrain from publishing it broadcast, but, is if vanity were obliged to lie, and when there was no rope for lying gave place to modesty, he never men- oned the matter to Robert again. |All his friends assured me that, as long as I stayed t Donciéres, or if I should come there again at any me, even although Robert were away, their horses, leir quarters, their time would be at my disposal, and felt that it was with the greatest cordiality that these oung men put their comfort and youth and strength t the service of my weakness. “Why on earth,” they went on, after insisting that I aould stay, “don’t you come down here every year; du see how our quiet life appeals to you! Besides you’re ) keen about everything that goes on in the Regiment; uite the old soldier.” For I continued my eager demands that they would assify the different officers whose names I knew accord- F to the degree of admiration which they seemed to eserve, just as, in my schooldays, I used to make the ther boys classify the actors of the Théatre-Francais. If, the place of one of the generals whom I had always vard mentioned at the head of the list, such as Galliffet Négrier, one of Saint-Loup’s friends, with a con- mptuous: “But Néerier is one of the feeblest of our ‘eral officers,” put the new, intact, appetising name of au or Geslin de Bourgogne, I felt the same joyful sur- ise as long ago when the outworn name of Thiron 169 i REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST or Febvre was sent flying by the sudden explosion | the unfamiliar name of Amaury. “Better even tha Négrier? But in what respect; give me an example?” atest have liked there to exist profound differences eve among the junior officers of the regiment, and I hop« in the reason for these differences to seize the essenti! quality of what constituted military superiority. The or whom I should have been most interested to hear di cussed, because he was the one whom I had most ofte seen, was the Prince de Borodino. But neither Sain, Loup nor his friends, if they did justice to the fine offic! who kept his squadron up to the supreme pitch of ef ciency, liked the man. Without speaking of him, naturall| in the same tone as of certain other officers, rankers a1 freemasons, who did not associate much with the re and had, in comparison, an uncouth, barrack-room ma ner, they seemed not to include M. de Borodino amol' the officers of noble birth, from whom, it must be a mitted, he differed considerably in his attitude even t wards Saint-Loup. The others, taking advantage of t} fact that Robert was only an N.C.O., and that therefo: his influential relatives might be grateful were he invitil to the houses of superior officers on whom ordinarily thy would have looked down, lost no opportunity of havix him to dine when any bigwig was expected who mig: be of use to a young cavalry serjeant. Captain de Bor- dino alone confined himself to his official relations (whic, for that matter, were always excellent) with Robert. T} {act was that the Prince, whose grandfather had bei made a Marshal and a Prince-Duke by the Emperor, wit whose family he had subsequently allied himself by me riage, while his father had married a cousin of Napole! 170 THE GUERMANTES WAY II and had twice been a Minister after the Coup d’Etat, ‘]t that in spite of all this he did not count for much vith Saint-Loup and the Guermantes connexion, who in ‘urn, since he did not look at things from the same point '{ view as they, counted for very little with him. He uspected that, for Saint-Loup, he himself was—he, a ‘insman of the Hohenzollern—not a true noble but the Hihdson of a farmer, but at the same time he regarded yaint-Loup as the son of a man whose Countship had ‘een confirmed by the Emperor—one of what were known ‘a the Faubourg Saint-Germain as “ touched-up ” Counts —and who had besought him first for a Prefecture, then ‘or some other post a long way down the list of subor- linates to His Highness the Prince de Borodino, Minister ‘f State, who was styled on his letters “ Monseigneur ” snd was a nephew of the Sovereign. / Something more than a nephew, possibly. The first Princesse Be Borodino was reputed to have bestowed her avours on Napoleon I, whom she followed to the Isle xf Elba, and the ond hers on Napoleon III. And if, m the Captain’s placid countenance, one caught a trace of Napoleon I—if not in his natural features, at least in the studied majesty of the mask—the officer had, par- ‘icularly in his melancholy and kindly gaze, in his droop- mg moustache, something that reminded one also of Napoleon III; and this in so striking a fashion that, qaving asked leave, after Sedan, to join the Emperor in taptivity, and having been sent away by Bismarck, before whom he had been brought, the latter, happening to look ap at the young man who was preparing to leave the oom, was at once impressed by the likeness and, re- Miisidering his decision, recalled him and gave him the by REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST authorisation which he, in common with every one els) had just been refused. | If the Prince de Borodino was not prepared to mak overtures to Saint-Loup nor to the other representatim! of Faubourg Saint-Germain society that there were j the regiment (while he frequently invited two subalterr of plebeian origin who were pleasant companions) it we because, looking down upon them all from the height ¢ his Imperial grandeur, he drew between these two class of inferiors the distinction that one set consisted of ir feriors who knew themselves to be such and with who he was delighted to spend his time, being beneath hi outward majesty of a simple, jovial humour, and tl other of inferiors who thought themselves his superiors, claim which he could not allow. And so, while all t other officers of the regiment made much of Saint-Lou| the Prince de Borodino, to whose care the young man ha been recommended by Marshal X , confined himse Saint-Loup always performed in the most exemplar fashion, but never had him to his house except on or special occasion when he found himself practically con! pelled to invite him, and when, as this occurred durir my stay at Donsiared he asked him to bring me to dinni also. I had no difficulty that evening, as I watched Sain) Loup sitting at his Captain’s table, in distinguishing, i their respective manners and refinements, the differeni that existed between the two aristocracies: the old nobilis and that of the Empire. The offspring of a caste th faults of which, even if he repudiated them with all tl force of his intellect, had been absorbed into his bloo a caste which, having ceased to exert any real authorit L72 | THE GUERMANTES WAY or at least a century, saw nothing more now in the ‘rotective affability which formed part of its regular purse of education, than an exercise, like horsemanship ¢ fencing, cultivated without any serious purpose, as a ort; on meeting representatives of that middle class jn which the old Robility so far looked down as to believe jat they were flattered by its intimacy and would be Jonoured by the informality of its tone, Saint-Loup would ake the hand of no matter who might be introduced ) him, though he had failed perhaps to catch the janger’s name, in a friendly grip, and as he talked to im (crossing and uncrossing his legs all the time, fling- ag himself back in his chair in an attitude of absolute ‘mconstraint, one foot in the palm of his hand) call him imy dear fellow.” Belonging on the other hand to a jobility whose titles still preserved their original mean- ag, provided that their holders still possessed the splendid imoluments given in reward for glorious services and \ringing to mind the record of high offices in which one 4) in command of numberless men and must know how 9 deal with men, the Prince de Borodino—not perhaps very distinctly or with any clear personal sense of superi- rity, but at any rate in his body, which revealed it by § attitudes and behaviour generally—regarded his own ank as a prerogative that was still effective; those same ommoners whom Saint-Loup would have slapped on the houlder and taken by the arm he addressed with a aajestic affability, in which a reserve instinct with gran- ‘eur tempered the smiling good-fellowship that came jaturally to him, in a tone marked at once by a genuine andliness and a stiffness deliberately assumed. This was ue, no doubt, to his being not so far removed from the 173 | eS . arab | | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | | great Embassies, and the Court itself, at which his fathe had held the highest posts, wheteas the manners of Sail Loup, the elbow on the table, the foot in the hand, wouk not have been well received there; but principally it wa. due to the fact that he looked down less upon the middl| classes because they were the inexhaustible source fron which the first Emperor had chosen his Marshals ani his nobles and in which the second had found a Roukel and a Fould. Son, doubtless, or grandson of an Emperor, who | nothing more important to do than to command a squad ron, the preoccupations of his putative father and grand father could not, for want of an object on which to faster themselves, survive in any real sense in the mind of M. d Borodino. But as the spirit of an artist continues ti model, for many years after he is dead, the statue whic) he carved, so they had taken shape in him, were material ised, incarnate in him, it was they that his face reflected It was with, in his voice, the vivacity of the first Empero that he worded a reprimand to a corporal, with th dreamy melancholy of the second that he puffed out th smoke of a cigarette. When he passed in plain clothe through the streets of Donciéres, a certain sparkle in hi eyes escaping from under the brim of the bowler ha sent radiating round this captain of cavalry a rega incognito; people trembled when he strode into the ser jeant-major’s office, followed by the adjutant and th quartermaster, as though by Berthier and Masséna. Wher he chose the cloth for his squadron’s breeches, he fastene on the master-tailor a gaze capable of baffling Talleyran and deceiving Alexander; and at times, in the middh of an inspection, he would stop, let his handsome blu 174 ——— a THE GUERMANTES WAY yyes cloud with dreams, twist his moustache, with the ir of one building up a new Prussia and a new Italy. jut a moment later, reverting from Napoleon Lieto Napoleon I, he would point out that the equipment was ot Bee Psrly polished, and would insist on tasting the aen’s rations. And at home, in his private life, it was or the wives of middle class officers (provided that their jusbands were not freemasons) that he would bring out ot only a dinner service of royal blue Sévres, fit for an ambassador (which had been given to his father by Napoleon, and appeared even more priceless in the com- aonplace house on a provincial street in which he was ving, like those rare porcelains which tourists admire vith a special delight in the rustic china- “cupboard of ‘ome old manor that has been converted into a com- ortable and prosperous farm house), but other gifts of ihe Emperor also: those noble and charming manners, thich too would have won admiration in some dinfeumce Jost abroad, if, for some men, it did not mean a lifelong emnation to the most unjust form of ostracism, aerely to be well born; his easy gestures, his kindness, is grace, and, embedding beneath an enamel that was f royal blue, also glorious images, the mysterious, illu- ainated, living reliquary of his gaze. And, in treating f the social relations with the middle classes which the ’rince had at Donciéres, it may be as well to add these ew words. The Beaten el played the piano beau- ‘fully; the senior medical officer’s wife sang like a Con- ‘tvatoire medallist. This latter couple, as well as the eutenant-colonel and his wife, used to dine every week mith M. de Borodino. They were flattered, unquestion- bly, knowing that when the Prince went to Paris on 175 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST leave he dined with Mme. de Pourtalés, and the Murats and people like that. “But,” they said to themselves “he’s just a captain, after all; he’s only too glad to ge us to come. Still, he’s a real friend, you know.” Bu when M. de Borodino, who had long been pulling every possible wire to secure an appointment for himsel; nearer Paris, was posted to Beauvais, he packed up anc went, and forgot as completely the two musical couple; as he forgot the Donciéres theatre and the little restau. rant to which he used often to send out for his luncheon and, to their great indignation, neither the lieutenant colonel nor the senior medical officer, who had so ofter sat at his table, ever had so much as a single word from him for the rest of their lives. One morning, Saint-Loup confessed to me that he hac written to my grandmother to give her news of me, witk the suggestion that, since there was telephonic connexion between Paris and Donciéres, she might make use of j to speak to me. In short, that very day she was to give me a call, and he advised me to be at the post office at about a quarter to four. The telephone was not ye at that date as commonly in use as it is to-day. And ye habit requires so short a time to divest of their mystery the sacred forces with which we are in contact, that, not having had my call at once, the only thought in my mind was that it was very slow, and badly managed, and I almost decided to lodge a complaint. Like all of us now- adays I found not rapid enough for my liking in its abrupt changes the admirable sorcery for which a few moments are enough to bring before us, invisible but present, the person to. whom. we have been wishing to speak, and who, while still sitting at his table, in the 176 ; THE GUERMANTES WAY ywn in which he lives (in my grandmother’s case, Paris), nder another sky than ours, in weather that is not neces- irily the same, in the midst of circumstances and worries f which we know nothing, but of which he is going to iform us, finds himself suddenly transported hundreds {miles (he and all the surroundings in which he remains ‘amured) within reach of our ear, at the precise moment yhich our fancy has ordained. And we are like the person i the fairy-tale to whom a sorceress, on his uttering the lish, makes appear with supernatural clearness his grand- ‘other or his betrothed in the act of turning over a book, = shedding tears, of gathering flowers, quite close to the yectator and yet ever so remote, in the place in which ae actually is at the moment. We need only, so that the uiracle may be accomplished, apply our lips to the magic vifice and invoke—occasionally for rather longer than sems to us necessary, I admit—the Vigilant Virgins to hose voices we listen every day without ever coming to now their faces, and who are our Guardian Angels in 1e dizzy realm of darkness whose portals they so jeal- sly keep; the All Powerful by whose intervention the sent rise up at our side, without our being permitted ) set eyes on them; the Danaids of the Unseen who ithout ceasing empty, fill, transmit the urns of sound; te ironic Furies who, just as we were murmuring a con- dence to a friend, in the hope that no one was listening, y brutally: “I hear you! ”; the ever infuriated servants the Mystery, the umbrageous priestesses of the In- sible, the Young Ladies of the Telephone. 'And, the moment our call has sounded, in the night Jed with phantoms to which our ears alone are unsealed, tiny sound, an abstract sound—the sound of distance 1 177 L REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST overcome—and the voice of the dear one speaks to us. It is she, it is her voice that is speaking, that is there But how remote it is! How often have I been unable t’ listen without anguish, as though, confronted by the i im possibility of seeing, except after long hours of | journeying her whose voice has been so close to my ear, I felt mor clearly the sham and illusion of meetings apparently mos pleasant, and at what a distance we may be from th people we love at the moment when it seems that we hav only to stretch out our hand to seize and hold them. A reg presence indeed that voice so near—in actual separatior| But a premonition also of an eternal separation! Ovye| and again, as I listened in this way, without seeing he who spoke to me from so far away, it has seemed to m that the voice was crying to me from depths out of whic! one does not rise again, and I have known the anxiety tha| was one day to wring my heart when a voice should thu return (alone, and attached no longer to a body which | was never more to see), to murmur, in my ear, words | would fain have kissed as they issued from lips for eve) turned to dust. This afternoon, alas, at Donciéres, the miracle did no occur. When I reached the post office, my grandmother’ call had already been received; I stepped into the box! the line was engaged; some one was talking who probabh did not realise that there was nobody to answer him, fo when I raised the receiver to my ear, the lifeless bloc! began squeaking like Punchinello; I silenced it, as on) silences a puppet, by putting it back on its hook, but, lik: Punchinello, as soon as I took it again in my hand, it re’ sumed its gabbling. At length, giving it up as hopeless by hanging up the receiver once and for all, I stifled th’ 178 -~-—— — THE GUERMANTES WAY onvulsions of this vociferous stump which kept up its hatter until the last moment, and went in search of the perator, who told me to wait a little; then I spoke, and, fter a few seconds of silence, suddenly I heard that voice thich I supposed myself, mistakenly, to know so well; ne always until then, every time that my grandmother ad talked to me, I had been accustomed to follow what ‘he was saying on the open score of her face, in which the yes figured so largely; but her voice itself I was hearing is afternoon for the first time. And because that voice ppeared to me to have altered in its proportions from je moment that it was a whole, and reached me in this ray alone and without the accompaniment of her face nd features, I discovered for the first time how sweet aat voice was; perhaps, too, it had never been so sweet, or my grandmother, knowing me to be alone and un- appy, felt that she might let herself go in the outpouring f an affection which, on her principle of education, she sually restrained and kept hidden. It was sweet, but Iso how sad it was, first of all on account of its very weetness, a sweetness drained almost—more than any ut a few human voices can ever have been—of every lement of resistance to others, of all selfishness; fragile 'y reason of its delicacy it seemed at every moment ready D break, to expire in a pure flow of tears; then, too, hav- ig it alone beside me, seen, without the mask of her ace, I noticed for the first time the sorrows that had carred it in the course of a lifetime. | Was it, however, solely the voice that, because it was lone, gave me this new impression which tore my heart? Jot at all; it was rather that this isolation of the voice vas like a symbol, a presentation, a direct consequence 179 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST . of another isolation, that of my grandmother, separa for the first time in my life, from myself. The orders or prohibitions which she addressed to me at every moment in the ordinary course of my life, the tedium of obedience or the fire of rebellion which neutralised the affection that I felt for her were at this moment eliminated, and indeed might be eliminated for ever (since my grandmother no longer insisted on having me with her under her control, was in the act of expressing her hope that I would stay at Donciéres altogether, or would at any rate extend my visit for as long as possible, seeing that both my health and my work seemed likely to benefit by the change); also, what I held compressed in this little bell that | ringing in my ear was, freed from the conflicting pressures, which had, every day hitherto, given it a counterpoise, and from this moment irresistible, carrying me altogetiah away, our mutual affection. My grandmother, by telling me to stay, filled me with an anxious, an insensate me f 7 to return. This freedom of action which for the future she allowed me and to which I had never dreamed that she would consent, appeared to me suddenly as sad as) might be my freedom of action after her death (when ii should still love her and she would for ever have aban- doned me). “Granny!” I cried to her, “ Granny!” and would fain have kissed her, but I had beside me only) that voice, a phantom, as impalpable as that which would | come perhaps to revisit me when my grandmother was dead. “Speak to me!” but then it happened that, left more solitary still, I ceased to catch the sound of her, voice. My grandmother could no longer hear me; she was no longer in communication with me; we had ceased to stand face to face, to be audible to one another; I con- 180 ; . a THE GUERMANTES WAY tinued to call her, sounding the empty night, in which I “elt that her appeals also must be straying. I was shaken by the same anguish which, in the distant past, I had felt ‘nce before, one day when, a little child, in a crowd, I had ‘ost her, an anguish due less to my not finding her than so the thought that she must be searching for me, must De saying to herself that I was searching for her; an anguish comparable to that which I was to feel on the lay when we speak to those who can no longer reply and whom we would so love to have hear all the things that ve have not told them, and our assurance that we are 1ot unhappy. It seemed as though it were already a be- oved ghost that I had allowed to lose herself in the shostly world, and, standing alone before the instrument, » went on vainly repeating: “Granny! Granny!” as Jrpheus, left alone, repeats the name of his dead wife. I lecided to leave the post office, to go and find Robert at his ‘estaurant, in order to tell him that, as I was half expect- ng a telegram which would oblige me to return to Paris, . wished at all costs to find out at what times the trains eft. And yet, before reaching this decision, I felt I must nake one attempt more to invoke the Daughters of the Night, the Messengers of the Word, the Deities without orm or feature; but the capricious Guardians had not leigned once again to unclose the miraculous portals, or ‘aore probably, had not been able; in vain might they Mptinsly appeal, as was their custom, to the venerable Aventor of printing and the young prince, collector of Mpressionist paintings and driver of motor-cars (who ‘Vas Captain de Borodino’s nephew) ; Gutenberg and Vagram left their supplications unanswered, and I came way, feeling that the Invisible would continue to turn a 181 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST deaf ear. S When I came among Robert and his friends, I with held the confession that my heart was no longer with then that my departure was now irrevocably fixed. Saint-Lou appeared to believe me, but I learned afterwards that k had from the first moment realised that my uncertally was feigned and that he would not see me again next dav And while, letting their plates grow cold, his friends joine him in searching through the time-table for a train whic would take me to Paris, and while we heard in th cold, starry night the whistling of the engines on the ling I certainly felt no longer the same peace of mind whic| on all these last evenings I had derived from the frienc ship of the former and the latter’s distant passage. An’ yet they did not fail me this evening, performing the sam office in a different way. My departure overpowered m| less when I was no longer obliged to think of it by mysel: when I felt that there was concentrated on what was t be done the more normal, more wholesome activity of m strenuous friends, Robert’s brothers in arms, and of thos other strong creatures, the trains, whose going and com ing, night and morning, between Donciéres and Paris broke up in retrospect what had been too compact ani insupportable in my long isolation from my grandmothe into daily possibilities of return. “TI don’t doubt the truth of what you're saying, or tha you aren’t thinking of leaving us Just yet,” said Saint Loup, smiling; “ but pretend you are going, and com and say good-bye to me to-morrow morning; early, other wise there’s a risk of my not seeing you; I’m going out ti luncheon, T’ve got leave from the Captain; I shall have ti : be back in barracks by two, as we are to be on the marcel 182 . | i —-—- THE GUERMANTES WAY ill afternoon. I suppose the man to whose house I’m joing, a couple of miles out, will manage to get me back in time.” Scarcely had he uttered these words when a messenger ame for me from my hotel; the telephone operator had ‘ent to find me. I ran to the post office, for it was nearly losing time. The word “trunks ” recurred incessantly in she answers given me by the officials. I was in a fever of jnxiety, for it was my grandmother who had asked for ae. The office was closing for the night. Finally I got fay connexion. “Is that you, Granny?” A woman’s voice, vith a strong English accent, answered: “Yes, but I on’t know your voice.” Neither did I recognise the voice that was speaking to me; besides, my grandmother called ae tu, and not vous. And then all was explained. The young man for whom his grandmother had called on the telephone had a name almost identical with my own, and fas staying in an annex of my hotel. This call coming mn the very day on which I had been telephoning to my mrandmother, I had never for a moment doubted that : was she who was asking for me. Whereas it was by jure coincidence that the post office and the hotel had vombined to make a twofold error. | Ihe following morning I rose late, and failed to catch aint-Loup, who had already started for the country jouse where he was invited to luncheon. About half past jne, I had decided to go in any case to the barracks, so as 2 be there before he arrived, when, as I was crossing me of the avenues on the way there, I noticed, coming ehind me in the same direction as myself, a tilbury rhich, as it overtook me, obliged me to jump out of its yay; an N.C.O. was driving it, wearing an eyeglass; it was 183 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | Saint-Loup. By his side was the friend whose guest |, had been at luncheon, and whom I had met once befo: at the hotel where we dined. I did not dare shout ) Robert since he was not alone, but, in the hope th he would stop and pick me up, I attracted his attentid by a sweeping wave of my hat, which might be regarde as due to the presence of a stranger. I knew that Robe was short-sighted; still, I should have supposed that, pri vided he saw me at all, he could not fail to recognise mi he did indeed see my salute, and returned it, but withor stopping; driving on at full speed, without a smile, witl out moving a muscle of his face, he confined himself 1 keeping his hand raised for a minute to the peak of h cap, as though he were acknowledging the salute of / trooper whom he did not know personally. I ran to th. barracks, but it was a long way; when I arrived, the reg ment was parading on the square, on which I was nc | allowed to stand, and I was heart-broken at not havin been able to say good-bye to Saint-Loup; I went up t his room, but he had gone; I was reduced to questionin: a group of sick details, recruits who had been excuse route-marches, the young graduate, one of the “old so diers ”, who were watching the regiment parade, a “You haven’t seen Serjeant Saint-Loup, have you, bi any chance?” I asked. “ He’s gone on parade, sir,” said the old soldier. | “T never saw him,” said the graduate. ap “You never saw him,” exclaimed the old soldier, losin all interest in me, “ you never saw our famous Saint-Lour the figure he’s cutting with his new breeches! When th Capstan sees that, officer’s cloth, my word!,” ‘aE “Oh, you’re a wonder, you are; officer’s cloth,” repliet 184 THE GUERMANTES WAY he young graduate, who, reported “sick in quarters ”, A vas excused marching and tried, not without some mis- ‘ivings, to be on easy terms with the veterans. “ This ifficer’s cloth you speak of is cloth like that, is it?” / “Sir?” asked the old soldier angrily. | He was indignant that the young graduate should hrow doubt on the breeches’ being made of officer’s doth, but, being a Breton, coming ae a village that: went by the name of Penguern-Stereden, having learned Wrench with as much difficulty as if it had been English a German, whenever he felt himself overcome by emo- jon he would go on saying “ Sir?” to give himself time o find words, then, after this preparation, let loose his loquence, confining himself to the repetition of certain yvords which he knew better than others, but without iaste, taking every precaution to glose over his unfa- niliarity with the pronunciation. |“ Ah! It is cloth like that,’ he broke out, with a fury he intensity of which increased as the speed of his utter- ince diminished. “ Ah! It is cloth like that; when I tell ‘ou that it is, officer’s cloth, when-I-tell-you-a-thing, if-I ell-you-a-thing, it’s because I know, I should think.” | “Very well, then; ” replied the young graduate, over- ‘ome by the force of this argument. “ Keep your hair on, ild boy.” | “There, look, there’s the Capstan coming along. No, mut just look at Saint-Loup; the way he throws his leg yut; and his head. Would you call that a non-com? And jis eyeglass; oh, he’s hot stuff, he is.” | I asked these troopers, who did not seem at all em- varrassed by my presence, whether I too might look out the window. They neither objected to my doing so 185 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | | nor moved to make room for me. I saw Captain de Bor dino go majestically by, putting his horse into a trot, | apparently under the illusion that he was taking part i the Battle of Austerlitz. A few loiterers had stopped t the gate to see the regiment file out. Erect on his charge his face inclined to plumpness, his cheeks of an Imperi fulness, his eye lucid, the Prince must have been t! victim of some hallucination, as I was myself wheneve after the tramway-car had passed, the silence that followe its rumble seemed to me to throb and echo with a vague! musical palpitation. I was wretched at not having sai good-bye to Saint-Loup, but I went nevertheless, for m one anxiety was to return to my grandmother; alway until then, in this little country town, when I thought ¢ what my grandmother must be doing by herself, I ha’ pictured her as she was when with me, suppressing m own personality but without taking into account the effec of such a suppression; now, I had to free myself, at th first possible moment, in her arms, from the phanton hitherto unsuspected and suddenly called into being b her voice, of a grandmother really separated from m resigned, having, what I had never yet thought of her A having, a definite age, who had just received a letter fror me in an empty house, as I had once before imagine Mamma in a house by herself, when I had left her to 2 to Balbec. / Alas, this phantom was just what I did see whe entering the drawing-room before my grandmother ha been told of my return, I found her there, reading. I wa in the room, or rather I was not yet in the room sinc she was not aware of my presence, and, like a woma whom one surprises at a piece of work which she will la 186 | | THE GUERMANTES WAY ,side if anyone comes in, she had abandoned herself to a ain of thoughts which she had never allowed to be visible yme. Of myself—thanks to that privilege which does not ast but which one enjoys during the brief moment of yeturn, the faculty of being a spectator, so to speak, of me’s own absence,—there was present only the witness, lhe observer, with a hat and travelling coat, the stranger tho does not belong to the house, the photographer who sas called to take a photograph of places which one will sever see again. The process that mechanically occurred a my eyes when I caught sight of my grandmother was adeed a photograph. We never see the people who are ear to us save in the animated system, the perpetual mo- ion of our incessant love for them, which before allowing he images that their faces present to reach us catches fem in its vortex, flings them back upon the idea that re have always had of them, makes them adhere to it, coincide with it. How, since into the forehead, the cheeks f my grandmother I had been accustomed to read all the rost delicate, the most permanent qualities of her mind; Ow, since every casual glance is an act of necromancy, fai face that we love a mirror of the past, how could I ave failed to overlook what in her had become dulled and hanged, seeing that in the most trivial spectacles of our aily life, our eye, charged with thought, neglects, as rould a classical tragedy, every image that does not ssist the action of the play and retains only those that iay help to make its purpose intelligible. But if, in place { our eye, it should be a purely material object, a photo- aphic plate, that has watched the action, then what we all see, in the courtyard of the Institute, for example, all be, instead of the dignified emergence of an Academi- 187 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | cian who is going to hail a cab, his staggering gait, his precautions to avoid tumbling upon his back, the parab. ola of his fall, as though he were drunk, or the grounc ' frozen over. So is it when some casual sport of chanei prevents our intelligent and pious affection from coming forward in time to hide from our eyes what they ough: never to behold, when it is forestalled by our eyes, and. they, arising first in the field and having it to themselves) set to work mechanically, like films, and shew us, II place of the loved friend who has long ago ceased ti exist but whose death our affection has always hitherti kept concealed from us, the new person whom a hundre times daily that affection has clothed with a dear anc cheating likeness. And, as a sick man who for long ha. not looked at his own reflexion, and has kept his memory | of the face that he never sees refreshed from the idea image of himself that he carries in his mind, recoils or catching sight in the glass, in the midst of an arid wasti. of cheek, of the sloping red structure of a nose as huge ai one of the pyramids of Egypt, I, for whom my grand mother was still myself, I who had never seen her sav 4 in my own soul, always at the same place in the past. through the transparent sheets of contiguous, overlappini memories, suddenly in our drawing-room which forme: part of a new world, that of time, that in which dwell th’ strangers of whom we say “ He’s begun to age a goo deal,” for the first time and for a moment only, since shi vanished at once, I saw, sitting on the sofa, beneath thi lamp, red-faced, heavy and common, sick, lost in thought following the lines of a book with eyes that seemed hardly sane, a dejected old woman whom I did not know. _ My request to be allowed to inspect the Elstirs in Mme 188 THE GUERMANTES WAY + Guermantes’s collection had been met by Saint-Loup lit. “J will answer for her.” And indeed, as ill luck ould have it, it was he and he alone who did answer. Je answer readily enough for other people when, setting jr mental stage with the little puppets that represent hem, we manipulate these to suit our fancy. No doubt yen then we take into account the difficulties due to an- ther person’s nature being different from our own, and e do not fail to have recourse to some plan of action kely to influence that nature, an appeal to his material iterest, persuasion, the rousing of emotion, which will eutralise contrary tendencies on his part. But these dif- frences from our own nature, it is still our own nature hat is imagining them, these difficulties, it is we that are aising them; these compelling motives, it is we that are ipplying them. And so with the actions which before ur mind’s eye we have made the other person rehearse, ind which make him act as we choose; when we wish to 3e him perform them in real life, the case is altered, we ome up against unseen resistances which may prove 1n- uperable. One of the strongest is doubtless that which jiay be developed in a woman who is not in love with him y the disgust inspired in her, a fetid, insurmountable sathing, by the man who is in love with her; during the mg weeks in which Saint-Loup still did not come to Waris, his aunt, to whom I had no doubt of his having ‘ritten begging her to do so, never once asked me to jall at her house to see the Elstirs. | I perceived signs of coldness on the part of another ‘ccupant of the building. This was Jupien. Did he con- ider that I ought to have gone in and said how d’ye do ') him, on my return from Donciéres, before even going 189 = | THE GUERMANTES WAY | upstairs to our own flat? My mother said no, that thes was nothing unusual about it. Francoise had told he that he was like that, subject to sudden fits of ill humou without any cause. These invariably passed off after little time. { Meanwhile the winter was drawing to an end. Or morning, after several weeks of showers and storms ‘4 ‘ heard in my chimney—instead of the wind, formles elastic, sombre, which convulsed me with a longing “ to the sea—the cooing of the pigeons that were nesti in the wall outside; shimmering, unexpected, like a firy hyacinth, gently tearing open its fostering heart that thet might shoot forth, purple and satin-soft, its flower ¢: sound, letting in like an opened window into my bedrolll still shuttered and dark the heat, the dazzling brightnes: the fatigue of a first fine day. That morning, I was sur prised to find myself humming a music-hall tune whic’ had never entered my head since the year in which I ha been going to Florence and Venice. So profoundly doe the atmosphere, as good days and bad recur, act on ou organism and draw from dim shelves where we had for gotten them, the melodies written there which our memor' could not decipher. Presently a more conscious dreame accompanied this musician to whom I was listening insid) myself, without having recognised at first what he wa I quite realised that it was not for any reason peculia, to Balbec that on my arrival there I had failed to fing in its church the charm which it had had for me before | knew it; that at Florence or Parma or Venice my imagi nation could no more take the place of my eyes when | looked at the sights there. I realised this. Similarly, oni 190 | | THE GUERMANTES WAY ; ew Year’s afternoon, as night fell, standing before a jlumn of playbills, I had discovered the illusion that lies our thinking that certain solemn holidays differ essen- lly from the other days in the calendar. And yet I vuld not prevent my memory of the time during which ihad looked forward to spending Easter in Florence from mtinuing to make that festival the atmosphere, so to yeak, of the City of Flowers, to give at once to Easter lay something Florentine and to Florence something i... Easter was still a long way off; but in the range ‘days that stretched out before me the days of Holy Teek stood out more clearly at the end of those that verely came between. Touched by a far flung ray, like srtain houses in a village which one sees from a distance then the rest are in shadow, they had caught and kept ‘il the sun. The weather had now become milder. And my parents aemselves, by urging me to take more exercise, gave me in excuse for resuming my morning walks. I had meant ) give them up, since they meant my meeting Mme. de uermantes. But it was for this very reason that I kept ainking all the time of those walks, which led to my find- ig, every moment, a fresh reason for taking them, a rea- on that had no connexion with Mme. de Guermantes and 0 difficulty in convincing me that, had she never existed, {should still have taken a walk, without fail, at that hour very morning. ' Alas, if te me meeting any person other than herself ‘ould not have mattered, I felt that to her meeting anyone athe world except myself would have been endurable. It appened that, in the course of her morning walks, she sceived the salutations of plenty of fools whom she re- | 19I REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST garded as such. But the appearance of these in her pat seemed to her, if not to hold out any promise of pleasur to be at any rate the result of mere accident. And sh stopped them at times, for there are moments in whic one wants to escape from oneself, to accept the hospitalit offered by the soul of another person, provided alway that the other, however modest and plain it may be, is | different soul, whereas in my heart she was exasperate, to feel that what she would have found was herself. An so, even when I had, for taking the same way as she, ar other reason than my desire to see her, I trembled like guilty man as she came past; and sometimes, so as > neutralise anything extravagant that there might seer) to have been in my overtures, I would barely acknowled her bow, or would fasten my eyes on her face co raising my hat, and succeed only in making her angrie than ever, and begin to regard me as insolent and il) bred besides. She was now wearing lighter, or at any rate a clothes, and would come strolling down the street in whic already, as though it were spring, in front of the narrov shops that were squeezed in between the huge fronts ¢ the old aristocratic mansions, over the booths of the buttei woman and the fruit-woman and the vegetable-womar awnings were spread to protect them from the sun. I sai! to myself that the woman whom I could see far off, walk’ ing, opening her sunshade, crossing the street, was, in th opinion of those best qualified to judge, the greatest livin exponent of the art of performing those movements an of making out of them something exquisitely lovely Meanwhile she was advancing towards me, unconsciou of this widespread reputation, her narrow, stubborn bod | 192 THE GUERMANTES WAY thich had absorbed none of it, was bent stifly forward fader a scarf of violet silk; her clear, sullen eyes looked ysently in front of her, and had perhaps caught sight of €; she was biting her lip; I saw her straighten her muff, ve alms to a beggar, buy a bunch of violets from a pwer-seller, with the same curiosity that I should have It in watching the strokes of a great painter’s brush. ind when, as she reached me, she gave me a bow that was ‘companied sometimes by a faint smile, it was as though 'e had sketched in colour for me, adding a personal in- ‘iption to myself, a drawing that was a masterpiece of it. Each of her gowns seemed to me her natural, necessary ‘rroundings, like the projection around her of a particular ipect of her soul. On one of these Lenten mornings, en she was on her way out to luncheon, I met her wear- iz. a gown of bright red velvet, cut slightly open at the (toat. The face of Mme. de Guermantes appeared to be feaming, beneath its pile of fair hair. I was less sad than jual because the melancholy of her expression, the sort of justration which the startling hue of her gown set be- een her and the rest of the world, made her seem some- w lonely and unhappy, and this comforted me. The wn struck me as being the materialisation round about of the scarlet rays of a heart which I did not recognise ihers and might have been able, perhaps, to console; feltered in the mystical light of the garment with its atly flowing folds, she made me think of some Saint of @ early ages of Christianity. After which I felt ashamed me cting with the sight of myself this holy martyr. Sut, after all, the streets are public.” The streets are public, I reminded myself, giving a dif- ‘ent meaning to the words, and marvelling that indeed 193 M REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | in the crowded thoroughfare often soaked with rain, whi made it beautiful and precious as a street sometimes in the old towns of Italy, the Duchesse de Guermant mingled with the public life of the world moments of h own secret life, shewing herself thus to all and sundr, jostled by every passer-by, with the splendid gratuito. ness of the greatest works of art. As I had been out in th morning, after staying awake all night, in the afterno my parents would tell me to lie Bowe for a little and t to sleep. There is no need, when one is trying to find sle to give much thought to the quest, but habit is very u ful, and even freedom from thought. But in these = SiS 15 ——$»— noon hours both were lacking. Before going to sleep,l devoted so much time to thinking that I should not } able to sleep, that even after I was asleep a little of thought remained. It was no more than a glimmer in t almost total darkness, but it was bright enough to cast reflexion in my ee first of the idea that I could nt sleep, and then, a reflexion of this reflexion, that it ws in my sleep that I had had the idea that I was not aslet, then, by a further refraction, my awakening... to2 fresh doze in which I was trying to tell some friends w had come into my room that, a moment earlier, when was asleep, I had imagined that I was not asleep. Th shades were barely distinguishible; it would have requi a keen—and quite useless—delicacy of perception to se! them all. Similarly, in later years, at Venice, long af the sun had set, when it seemed to be quite dark, I ha seen, thanks to the echo, itself imperceptible, of a li note of light, held indefinitely on the surface of the cané. as though some optical pedal were being pressed, the - flexion of the palaces unfurled, as tnough for all time, 1 194 THE GUERMANTES WAY (rker velvet, on the crepuscular greyness of the water. ine of my dreams was the synthesis of what my imagina- im had often sought to depict, in my waking hours, of a (rtain seagirt place and its mediaeval past. In my sleep saw a gothic fortress rising from a sea whose waves were ‘led as in a painted window. An arm of the sea cut the fn in two; the green water stretched to my feet; it hed on the opposite shore the foundations of an oriental urch, and beyond it houses which existed already in the i a century, so that to go across to them would we been to ascend the stream of time. This dream in ich nature had learned from art, in which the sea had ined gothic, this dream in which I longed to attain, in wich I believed that I was attaining to the impossible, jseemed to me that I had often dreamed it before. But it is the property of what we imagine in our sleep to altiply itself in the past, and to appear, even when vel, familiar, I supposed that I was mistaken. I no- ved, however, that I did frequently have this dream. The limitations, too, that are common to all sleep were lected in mine, but in a symbolical manner; I could not ithe darkness make out the faces of the friends who were ‘the room, for we sleep with our eyes shut; I, who ld carry on endless arguments with myself while I tamed, as soon as I tried to speak to these friends felt |} words stick in my throat, for we do not speak dis- ‘tly in our sleep; I wanted to go to them, and I could i move my limbs, for we do not walk when we are l2ep either; and suddenly I was ashamed to be seen by /m, for we sleep without our clothes. So, my eyes ded, my lips sealed, my limbs fettered, my body naked, | figure of sleep which my sleep itself projected had the 195 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST appearance of those great allegorical figures (in one { which Giotto has portrayed Envy with a serpent in h mouth) of which Swann had given me photographs. Saint-Loup came to Paris for a few hours only. ] came with assurances that he had had no opportunity mentioning me to his cousin. “She’s not being at all ng just now, Oriane isn’t,” he explained, with innocent se betrayal. “She’s not my old Oriane any longer, they¢ gone and changed her. I assure you, it’s not worth wh bothering your head about her. You pay her far too gry a compliment. You wouldn’t care to meet my cout Poictiers?” he went on, without stopping to reflect tl} this could not possibly give me any pleasure. “ Quite intelligent young woman, she is; you’ld like her. Shy fellow, but a bit slow for her. I’ve told her about yu She said I was to bring you to see her. She’s much betij looking than Oriane, and younger, too. Really a nice pi son, don’t you know, really a good sort.” These were « pressions recently—and all the more ardently—taken § by Robert, which meant that the person in question k a delicate nature. “I don’t go so far as to say she Dreyfusard, you must remember the sort of people 4 lives among; still, she did say to me: ‘If he is innoce how ghastly for him to be shut up on the Devil’s Is You see what I mean, don’t you? And then she’s the s@ of woman who does a tremendous lot for her old g@ ernesses; she’s given orders that they’re never to be sit in by the servants’ stair, when they come to the how, She’s a very good sort, I assure you. The real rea| why Oriane doesn’t like her is that she feels she’s @ cleverer of the two.” , | 196 THE GUERMANTES WAY | Although completely absorbed in the pity which she It for one of the Guermantes footmen—who had no aance of going to see his girl, even when the Duchess was ut, for it would immediately have been reported to her om the lodge,—Francoise was heartbroken at not having ‘een in the house at the moment of Saint-Loup’s visit, ut this was because now she herself paid visits also. She ever failed to go out on the days when I most wanted er. It was always to see her brother, her niece and, more articularly, her own daughter, who had recently come to ive in Paris. The intimate nature of these visits itself icreased the irritation that I felt at being deprived of her arvices, for I had a foreboding that she would speak of hem as being among those duties from which there was 0 dispensation, according to the laws laid down at Saint- )ndré-des-Champs. And so I never listened to her excuses Mithout an ill humour which was highly unjust to her, and vas brought to a climax by the way Frangoise had of say- ig not: “I have been to see my brother,” or “I have een to see my niece,” but “I have been to see the ‘rother,” “I just looked in as I passed to bid good day to he niece” (or “to my niece the butcheress”). As for her laughter, Francoise would have been glad to see her re- am to Combray. But this recent Parisian, making use, ike a woman of fashion, of abbreviations, though hers ere of a vulgar kind, protested that the week she was ding shortly to spend at Combray would seem quite long hough without so much as a sight of “the Jntran”. She as still less willing to go to Francoise’s sister, who lived . a mountainous country, for “mountains,” said the aughter, giving to the adjective a new and terrible mean- g, “aren’t really interesting.” She could not make up 197 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST her mind to go back to Méséglise, where “the people ar so stupid,” where in the market the gossips at their stall would call cousins with her, and say “ Why, it’s nev poor Bazireau’s daughter?” She would sooner die tha go back and bury herself down there, now that she ha “tasted the life of Paris,” and Francoise, traditionalist a she was, smiled complacently nevertheless at the spin of innovation that was incarnate in this new Parisia when she said: “ Very well, mother, if you don’t get you day out, you have only to send me a pneu.” The weather had turned chilly again. “Go out? Wha for? To catch your death?” said Frangoise, who preferre to remain in the house during the week which her daughte and brother and the butcher-niece had gone to spend Combray. Being, moreover, the last surviving adherer of the sect in whom persisted obscurely the doctrin of my aunt Léonie—a natural philosopher—Frangoi would add, speaking of this unseasonable weather: “] is the remnant of the wrath of God!” But I responde to her complaints only in a languid smile; all the mor indifferent to these predictions, in that whatever befell | would be fine for me; already I could see the mornin sun shine on the slope of Fiesole, I warmed myse in its rays; their strength obliged me to half-oper ‘half-shut my eyelids, smiling the while, and my eyelid like alabaster lamps, were filled with a rosy glow. It we not only the bells that came from Italy, Italy had com with them. My faithful hands would not lack flowers 1 honour the anniversary of the pilgrimage which I ougl to have made long ago, for since, here in Paris, the weat had turned cold again as in another year at the time ¢ our preparations for departure at the end of Lent, in th 198 a Oe ws THE GUERMANTES WAY iquid, freezing air which bathed the chestnuts and planes in the boulevards, the tree in the courtyard of our house, ihere were already opening their petals, as in a bowl of sure water, the narcissi, the jonquils, the anemones of the vonte Vecchio. | My father had informed us that he now knew, from his riend A. J., where M. de Norpois was going when he met im about the place. | “It’s to see Mme. de Villeparisis, they are great friends; never knew anything about it. It seems she’s a delight- il person, a most superior woman. You ought to go and all on her,” he told me. “ Another thing that surprised ae very much. He spoke to me of M. de Guermantes as juite a distinguished man; I had always taken him for a oor. It seems, he knows an enormous amount, and has jerfect taste, only he’s very proud of his name and his onnexions. But for that matter, according to Norpois, e has a tremendous position, not only here but all over urope. It appears, the Austrian Emperor and the Tsar reat him just like one of themselves. Old Norpois told re that Mme. de Villeparisis had taken quite a fancy to ou, and that you would meet all sorts of interesting eople in her house. He paid a great tribute to you; you nll see him if you go there, and he may have some good dvice for you even if you are going to be a writer. For jou're not likely to do anything else; I can see that. t might turn out quite a good career; it’s not what I nould have chosen for you, myself; but you'll be a man 1 no time now, we shan’t always be here to look after ou, and we mustn’t prevent you from following your ocation.” ‘Tf only I had been able to start writing! But what- 199 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST ever the conditions in which I approached the task (a too, alas, the undertakings not to touch alcohol, to gt to bed early, to sleep, to keep fit), whether it wer, with enthusiasm, with method, with pleasure, in deprivin myself of a walk, or postponing my walk and keeping i 1 in reserve as a reward of ee taking advantage fo} an hour of good health, utilising the inactivity forced oO: me by a day of illness, what always emerged in the en from all my effort was a virgin page, undefiled by am writing, ineluctable as that forced card which in certal! _ tricks one invariably is made to draw, however carefull: one may first have shuffled the pack. I was merely th! instruments of habits of not working, of not going to bec of not sleeping, which must find expression somehow, cos| what it might; if I offered them no resistance, if I con tented myself with the pretext they seized from the firs opportunity that the day afforded them of acting as the’ chose, I escaped without serious injury, I slept for a fey hours after all, towards morning, I read a little, I did nc over-exert myself; but if I attempted to thwart them, if | pretended to go to bed early, to drink only water, to work they grew restive, they adopted strong measures, the! made me really ill, I was obliged to double my dose 0 alcohol, did not lie down in bed for two days and nights o! end, could not even read, and I vowed that another tim) I would be more reasonable, that is to say less wise, lik’ the victim of an assault who allows himself to be robbe| for fear, should he offer resistance, of being murdered. My father, in the mean time, had met M. de Guerman) tes once or twice, and, now that M. de Norpois had toll him that the Duke was a remarkable man, had begun t pay more attention to what he said. As it happened, the § 200 | | THE GUERMANTES WAY et in the courtyard and discussed Mme. de Villeparisis. ‘He tells me, she’s his aunt; ‘ Viparisi,’ he pronounces it. Te tells me, too, she’s an extraordinarily able woman, In ‘act he said she kept a School of Wit,’ my father an- ounced to us, impressed by the vagueness of this ex- ression, which he had indeed come across now and then 1 volumes of memoirs, but without attaching to it any efinite meaning. My mother, so great was her respect ix him, when she saw that he did not dismiss as of no mportance the fact that Mme. de Villeparisis kept a chool of Wit, decided that this must be of some conse- uence. Albeit from my grandmother she had known all ne time the exact amount of the Marquise’s intellectual ‘orth, it was immediately enhanced in her eyes. My ‘randmother, who was not very well just then, was not 4 favour at first of the suggested visit, and afterwards lost aterest in the matter. Since we had moved into our new at, Mme. de Villeparisis had several times asked my randmother to call upon her. And invariably my grand- tother had replied that she was not going out just at resent, in one of those letters which, by a new habit of ‘ers which we did not understand, she no longer sealed erself, but employed Francoise to lick the envelopes for er. As for myself, without any very clear picture in my und of this School of Wit, I should not have been greatly irprised to find the old lady from Balbec installed be- ind a desk, as, for that matter, I eventually did. My father would have been glad to know, into the bar- ain, whether the Ambassador’s support would be worth jany votes to him at the Institute, for which he had ioughts of standing as an independent candidate. To al the truth, while he did not venture to doubt that he 201 —— } REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST would have M. de Norpois’s support, he was by no mean certain of it. He had thought it merely malicious Ossi] when they assured him at the Ministry that M. de Nor pois, wishing to be himself the only representative ther) of the Institute, would put every possible obstacle in th’ way of my father’s candidature, which besides would b particularly awkward for him at that moment, since h) was supporting another candidate already. And yet, whej M. Leroy-Beaulieu had first advised him to stand, and hai reckoned up his chances, my father had been struck bi the fact that, among the colleagues upon whom he cou count for support, the eminent economist had not men| tioned M. de Norpois. He dared not ask the Ambassado} point-blank, but hoped that I should return from my cal on Mme. de Villeparisis with his election as good as se cured, This call was now imminent. That M. de Norpoi| would carry on propaganda calculated to assure m} father the votes of at least two thirds of the Academy seemed to him all the more probable since the Ambassa dor’s willingness to oblige was proverbial, those who like him least admitting that no one else took such pleasun in being of service. And besides, at the Ministry, his pro tective influence was extended over my father far mor markedly than over any other official. My father had also another encounter about this time but one at which his extreme surprise ended in equa| indignation. In the street one day he ran into Mme Sazerat, whose life in Paris her comparative poverty re stricted to occasional visits to a friend. There was no on who bored my father quite so intensely as did Mme Sazerat, so much so that Mamma was obliged, once a year to intercede with him in sweet and suppliant tones: “ My} 202 aa bee THE GUERMANTES WAY ear, I really must invite Mme. Sazerat to the house, ist once; she won’t stay long; ” and even: “ Listen, dear, | am going to ask you to make a great sacrifice; do go ind call upon Mme. Sazerat. You know I hate bothering ou, but it would be so nice of you.” He would laugh, aise various objections, and go to pay the call. And so, e all that Mme. Sazerat did not appeal to him, on catch- ig sight of her in the street my father went towards her, fat in hand; but to his profound astonishment Mme. azerat confined her greeting to the frigid bow enforced by ‘oliteness towards a person who is guilty of some dis- taceful action or has been condemned to live, for the ature, in another hemisphere. My father had come home peechless with rage. Next day my mother met Mme. azerat in some one’s house. She did not offer my mother ‘er hand, but only smiled at her with a vague and melan- holy air as one smiles at a person with whom one used 9 play as a child, but with whom one has since severed Il one’s relations because she has led an abandoned life, as married a convict or (what is worse still) a co-re- pondent. Now, from all time my parents had accorded o Mme. Sazerat, and inspired in her, the most profound espect. But (and of this my mother was ignorant) Mme. jazerat, alone of her kind at Combray, was a Dreyfusard. Ay father, a friend of M. Méline, was convinced that Dreyfus was guilty. He had flatly refused to listen to ome of his colleagues who had asked him to sign a peti- ion demanding a fresh trial. He never spoke to me for .week, after learning that I had chosen to take a different ine. His opinions were well known. He came near to be- ng looked upon as a Nationalist. As for my grandmother, no whom alone of the family a generous doubt was likely 203 REMEMBRANCE OF.THINGS PAST to be kindled, whenever anyone spoke to her of the pos sible innocence of Dreyfus, she gave a shake of her heag the meaning of which we did not at the time understand but which was like the gesture of a person who has bee interrupted while thinking of more serious things. M mother, torn between her love for my father and her hop| that I might turn out to have brains, preserved an im partiality which she expressed by silence. Finally m: grandfather, who adored the Army (albeit his duties wit! the National Guard had been the bugbear of his ripe! years), could never, at Combray, see a regiment go by th garden railings without baring his head as the colonel ani the colours passed. All this was quite enough to mak’ Mme. Sazerat, who knew every incident of the disi terested and honourable careers of my father and grand father, regard them as pillars of Injustice. We pardor the crimes of individuals, but not their participation in / collective crime. As soon as she knew my father to be a anti-Dreyfusard she set between him and herself con tinents and centuries. Which explains why, across suc an interval of time and space, her bow had been imper ceptible to my father, and why it had not occurred to he! to hold out her hand, or to say a few words which would never have carried across the worlds that lay between. | Saint-Loup, who was coming anyhow to Paris, ha promised to take me to Mme. de Villeparisis’s, where hoped, though I had not said so to him, that we migh meet Mme. de Guermantes. He invited me to luncheo in a restaurant with his mistress, whom we were after wards to accompany to a rehearsal. We were to go ou in the morning and call for her at her home on the out skirts of Paris. 204 THE GUERMANTES WAY {Thad asked Saint-Loup that the restaurant to which we ‘ent for luncheon (in the lives of young noblemen with soney to spend the restaurant plays as important a part 5 do bales of merchandise in Arabian stories), might, if ossible, be that to which Aimé had told me that he would 2 going as head waiter until the Balbec season started. { was a great attraction to me who dreamed of so many peditions and made so few to see again some one who ormed part not merely of my memories of Balbec but of jalbec itself, who went there year after year, who when. ) health or my studies compelled me to stay in Paris ould be watching, just the same, through the long July ‘ternoons while he waited for the guests to come in to mner, the sun creep down the sky and set in the sea, rough the glass panels of the great dining-room, behind thich, at the hour when the light died, the motionless ings of vessels, smoky blue in the distance, looked like sotic and nocturnal moths in a show-case. Himself mag- stised by his contact with the strong lodestone of Balbec, is head waiter became in turn a magnet attracting me. ‘hoped by talking to him to get at once into communica- on with Balbec, to have realised here in Paris some- ing of the delights of travel. I left the house early, with Francoise complaining bit- tly because the footman who was engaged to be married ad once again been prevented, the evening before, from ° ding to see his girl. Francoise had found him in tears; he ad been itching to go and strike the porter, but had re- tained himself, for he valued his place. Before reaching Saint-Loup’s, where he was to be wait- g for me at the door, I ran into Legrandin, of whom e had lost sight since our Combray days, and who, 205 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST though now grown quite grey, had preserved his air | youthful candour. Seeing me, he stopped: | “Ah! So it’s you,” he exclaimed, “a man of fashio and in a frock coat too! That is a livery in which mf independent spirit would be ill at ease. It is true that ye are a man of the world, I suppose, and go out payir| calls! To go and dream, as I do, before some ha ruined tomb, my flowing tie and jacket are not out ! place. You know how I admire the charming quality | your soul; that is why I tell you how deeply I regret th, you should go forth and deny it among the Gentiles. E being capable of remaining for a moment in the nausea, ing atmosphere—which I am unable to breathe—of ! drawing-room, you pronounce on your own future tl) condemnation, the damnation of the Prophet. I can s¢ it all, you frequent the “light hearts’, the houses of tl! great, that is the vice of our middle class to-day. Al) Those aristocrats! The Terror was greatly to blame f not cutting the heads off every one of them. They at all sinister debauchees, when they are not simply drear| idiots. Still, my poor boy, if that sort of thing amusé¢ you! While you are on your way to your tea-party you old friend will be more fortunate than you, for alone in a outlying suburb he will be watching the pink moon ris in a violet sky. The truth is that I scarcely belong to th’ Earth upon which I feel myself such an exile; it takes a the force of the law of gravity to hold me here, to keep m from escaping into another sphere. I belong to a differer planet. Good-bye; do not take amiss the old-time frank ness of the peasant of the Vivonne, who has also remaine a peasant of the Danube. To prove to you that I am you sincere well-wisher, I am going to send you my last nove 206 THE GUERMANTES WAY 3t you will not care for it; it is not deliquescent enough, _ fin de siécle enough for you; it is too frank, too hon- i; what you want is Bergotte, you have confessed it, high ine for the jaded palates of pleasure-seeking epicures. ‘uppose I am looked upon, in your set, as an old cam- gner; I do wrong to put my heart into what I write, It is no longer done; besides, the life of the people is |: distinguished enough to interest your little snobbicules. |, get you gone, try to recall at times the words of irist: ‘Do this and ye shall live.’ Farewell, Friend.” ‘t was not with any particular resentment against izrandin that I parted from him. Certain memories are i2 friends in common, they can bring about reconcilia- ‘ns; set down amid fields starred with buttercups, upon ich were piled the ruins of feudal greatness, the little foden bridge still joined us, Legrandin and me, as it ined the two banks of the Vivonne. ‘After coming out of a Paris in which, although spring ‘d begun, the trees on the boulevards had hardly put their first leaves, it was a marvel to Saint-Loup and ‘self, when the circle train had set us down at the urban village in which his mistress was living, to ; every cottage garden gay with huge festal altars of uit trees in blossom. It was like one of those peculiar, ‘stical, ephemeral, local festivals which people travel ng distances to attend on certain fixed occasions, only s one was held by Nature. The bloom of the cherry 'e is stuck so close to its branches, like a white sheath, it from a distance, among the other trees that shewed yet scarcely a flower or leaf, one might have taken it, this day of sunshine that was still so cold, for snow, ‘Ited everywhere else, which still clung to the bushes. 207 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST But the tall pear trees enveloped each house, each mod¢ courtyard in a whiteness more vast, more uniform, me dazzling, as if all the dwellings, all the enclosed spaces | the village were on their way to make, on one solen| date, their first communion. It had been a country village, and had kept its ¢| mayor’s office sunburned and brown, in front of whic, in the place of maypoles and streamers, three tall pe’ trees were, as though for some civic and local festiy| gallantly beflagged with white satin. These villages the environs of Paris still have at their gates parks | the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which were t} “follies” of the stewards and favourites of the gre; A fruit-grower had utilised one of these which was sui below the road for his trees, or had simply, perhaj| preserved the plan of an immense orchard of form days. Laid out in quincunxes, these pear trees, le crowded and not so far on as those that I had see, formed great quadrilaterals—separated by low walls} of snowy blossom, on each side of which the light f| differently, so that all these airy roofless chambers seem| to belong to a Palace of the Sun, such as one might u: earth in Crete or somewhere; and made one think al of the different ponds of a reservoir, or of those parts the sea which man, for some fishery, or to plant oyste beds has subdivided, when one saw, varying with t orientation of the boughs, the light fall and play up their trained arms as upon water warm with spring, al coax into unfolding here and there, gleaming amid t open, azure-panelled trellis of the branches, the foami whiteness of a creamy, sunlit flower. | Never had Robert spoken to me so tenderly of his frie! 208 hag | THE GUERMANTES WAY he did during this walk. She alone had taken root in ; heart; his future career in the Army, his position in ciety, his family, he was not, of course, indifferent alto- ther to these, but they were of no account compared th the veriest trifle that concerned his mistress. That me had any importance in his eyes, infinitely more im- ittance than the Guermantes and all the kings of the th put together. I do not know whether he had for- tiated the doctrine that she was of a superior quality to yone else, but I do know that he considered, took trouble ly about what affected her. Through her and for her he s capable of suffering, of being happy, perhaps of doing lider. There was really nothing that interested, that ald excite him except what ee mistress wished, was . ng to do, what was going on, discernable at most in sting changes of expression, in the narrow expanse of her ve and behind her privileged brow. So nice-minded in’ ) else, he looked forward to the prospect of a brilliant : riage, solely in order to be able to continue to main- a her, to keep her always. If one had asked oneself what is the value that he set on her, I doubt whether one ild ever have imagined a figure high enough. If he did ‘marry her, it was because a practical instinct warned 2 that as soon as she had nothing more to expect from a she would leave him, or would at least live as she we, and that he must retain his hold on her by keeping in suspense from day to day. For he admitted the sibility that she did not love him. No doubt the general ‘ction called love must have forced him—as it forces men—to believe at times that she did. But in his heart hearts he felt that this love which she felt for him did exhaust the possibility of her remaining with him only 209 N REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST on account of his money, and that on the day when s: had nothing more to expect from him she would ma: haste (the dupe of her friends and their literary theori, and loving him all the time, really—he thought) to lea: him. “If she is nice to me to-day,” he confided to me, am going to give her something that she'll like. It’s a neq lace she saw at Boucheron’s. It’s rather too much for x just at present—thirty thousand francs. But, poor p she gets so little pleasure out of life. She will be jo) pleased with it, I know. She mentioned it to me and td me she knew somebody who would perhaps cate it to hr I don’t believe that is true, really, but I wasn’t taking a risks, so ’ve arranged with Boucheron, who is our fam} jeweller, to keep it for me. I am glad to think that you going to meet her; she’s nothing so very wondertult look at, you know,” (I could see that he thought just i opposite and had said this only so as to make me, whe! did see her, admire her all the more) “what she has }j is a marvellous judgment; she’ll perhaps he afraid to tk much before you, but, by Jove! the things she'll says me about you afterwards, you know she says things ¢ can go on thinking about for hours; there’s really sor} thing about her that’s quite Pythian.” | On our way to her house we passed by a row of lit gardens, and I was obliged to stop, for they were | aflower with pear and cherry blossom; as empty, no dout and lifeless only yesterday as a house that no tenant |} taken, they were suddenly peopled and adorned by thi newcomers, arrived during the night, whose lovely wh} garments we could see through any. railings ce | garden paths. | “Listen; I can see you'ld rather stop and look att 210 if ns | | THE GUERMANTES WAY iff, and grow poetical about it,” said Robert, “so just vit for me here, will you; my friend’s house is quite close, vill go and fetch her.” While I waited I strolled up and down the road, past se modest gardens. If I raised my head I could see, ‘w and then, girls sitting in the windows, but outside, in 2 open air, and at the height of a half-landing, here and ore, light and pliant, in their fresh pink gowns, hanging tong the leaves, young lilac-clusters were letting them- ves be swung by the breeze without heeding the passer- / who was turning his eyes towards their green mansions. [recognised in them the platoons in violet uniform sted at the entrance to M. Swann’s park, past the little “ite fence, in the warm afternoons of spring, like an chanting rustic tapestry. I took a path which led me 0 a meadow. A cold wind blew keenly along it, as at ‘mbray, but from the midst of the rich, moist, country 1, which might have been on the bank of the Vivonne, mre had nevertheless arisen, punctual at the trysting ice like all its band of brothers, a great white pear tree bs waved smilingly in the sun’s face, like a curtain light materialised and made palpable, its flowers shaken the breeze but polished and frosted with silver by the Ys rays. suddenly Saint-Loup appeared, accompanied by his stress, and then, in this woman who was for him all the (eg, every possible delight in life, whose personality, mys- tously enshrined in a body as in a Tabernacle, was the ject that still occupied incessantly the toiling imagina- 1 of my friend, whom he felt that he would never really Ww, as to whom he was perpetually asking himself what ld be her secret self, behind the veil of eyes and flesh, 211 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST in this woman I recognised at once “ Rachel when from tl Lord”, her who, but a few years since—women chang their position so rapidly in that world, when they C change—used to say to the procuress: “ To-morrow eve} ing, then, if you want me for anyone, you will ser round, won’t you?” | And when they had “come round” for her, ae s| found herself alone in the room with the “ anyone”, sl) had known so well what was required of her that aft! locking the door, as a prudent woman’s precaution or ritual gesture, she would begin to take off all her thing) as one does before the doctor who is going to sound oné chest, never stopping in the process unless the “ some one’ not caring for nudity, told her that she might keep on hi shift, as specialists do sometimes who, having an e} tremely fine ear and being afraid of their patient’s cate| ing a chill, are satisfied with listening to his breathing ar the beating of his heart through his shirt. On this wom whose whole life, all her thoughts, all her past, all t) men who at one time or another had had her were to rj so utterly unimportant that if she had begun to tell about them I should have listened to her only out of polit ness, and should barely have heard what she said, I ft that the anxiety, the torment, the love of Saint-Loup hi been concentrated in such a way as to make—out of wh; .. was for me a mechanical toy, nothing more—the cause | endless suffering, the very object and reward of existen¢ Seeing these two elements separately (because I had knoy “Rachel when from the Lord” in a house of ill fame I realised that many women for the sake of whom mi live, suffer, take their lives, may be in themselves or fi other people what Rachel was for me. The idea that ai 212 THE GUERMANTES WAY e could be tormented by curiosity with regard to her 2 stupefied me. I could have told Robert of any number ¢ her unchastities, which seemed to me the most unin- testing things in the world. And how they would have ined him! And what had he not given to learn them, ythout avail! I realised also then all that the human imagination can } yt behind a little scrap of face, such as this girl’s face | 1s, if it is the imagination that was the first to know it; | d conversely into what wretched elements, crudely ma- ‘ial and utterly without value, might be decomposed iat had been the inspiration of countless dreams if, on e contrary, it should be so to speak controverted by the ghtest actual acquaintance. I saw that what had ap-. ared to me to be not worth twenty francs when it had ien offered to me for twenty francs in the house of ill me, where it was then for me simply a woman desirious /earning twenty francs, might be worth more than a illion, more than one’s family, more than all the most veted positions in life if one had begun by imagining her \ -embody a strange creature, interesting to know, diffi- | It to seize and to hold. No doubt it was the same thin d narrow face that we saw, Robert and I. But we had tived at it by two opposite ways, between which there aus no communication, and we should never both see it pm the same side. That face, with its stares, its smiles, e movements of its lips, I had known from outside as ing simply that of a woman of the sort who for twenty ancs would do anything that I asked. And so her stares, r smiles, the movements of her lips had seemed to me mificant merely of the general actions of a class without y distinctive quality. And beneath them I should not : 213 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST have had the curiosity to look for a person. But what: me had in a sense been offered at the start, that consen ing face, had been for Robert an ultimate goal towar) which he had made his way through endless hopes ar doubts, suspicions, dreams. He gave more than a milli francs in order to have for himself, in order that the might not be offered to others what had been offered | me, as to all and sundry, for a score. That he too shou not have enjoyed it at the lower price may have been d to the chance of a moment, the instant in which she wl seemed ready to yield herself makes off, having perha an assignation elsewhere, some reason which makes h more difficult of access that day. Should the man be sentimentalist, then, even if she has not observed it, b’ infinitely more if she has, the direst game begins. Unab| to swallow his disappointment, to make himself forg. about the woman, he starts afresh in pursuit, she flies hit until a mere smile for which he no longer ventured + hope is bought at a thousand times what should have bee the price of the last, the most intimate favours. It happe even at times in such a case, when one has been led by mixture of simplicity in one’s judgment and cowardice ' the face of suffering to commit the crowning folly of mal ing an inaccessible idol of a girl, that these last favour or even the first kiss one is fated never to obtain, one longer even ventures to ask for them for fear of destro’ ing one’s chances of Platonic love. And it is then a bitt anguish to leave the world without having ever know what were the embraces of the woman one has most pa sionately loved. As for Rachel’s favours, however, Sain Loup had by mere accident succeeded in winning the! all. Certainly if he had now learned that they had bee) 214 i ——-- —~— - para em THE GUERMANTES WAY iffered to all the world for a louis, he would have suffered, wf course, acutely, but would still have given a million rancs for the right to keep them, for nothing that he night have learned could have made him emerge—since hat is beyond human control and can be brought to pass aly in spite of it by the action of some great natural law -from the path he was treading, from which that face ould appear to him only through the web of the dreams hat he had already spun. The immobility of that thin em like that of a sheet of paper subjected to the colossal iressure of two atmospheres, seemed to me to be being qaintained by two infinities which abutted on her without feeting, for she held them apart. And indeed, when Nobert and I were both looking at her we did not both ‘ee her from the same side of the mystery. } It was not “ Rachel when from the Lord ”—who seemed 2 me a small matter—it was the power of the human magination, the illusion on which were based the pains of we; these I felt to be vast. Robert noticed that I appeared aoved. I turned my eyes to the pear and cherry trees f the garden opposite, so that he might think that it was neir beauty that had touched me. And it did touch me 1 somewhat the same way; it also brought close to me aings of the kind which we not only see with our eyes ut feel also in our hearts. These trees that I had seen in ae garden, likening them in my mind to strange deities, ‘ad not my mistake been like the Magdalene’s when, in Mother garden, she saw a human form and “thought it yas the gardener”. Treasurers of our memories of the ge of gold, keepers of the promise that reality is not what /e suppose, that the splendour of poetry, the wonderful adiance of innocence may shine in it and may be the 215 I | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | recompense which we strive to earn, these great whit) creatures, bowed in a marvellous fashion above the shad propitious for rest, for angling or for reading, were ther not rather angels? I exchanged a few words with Saint Loup’s mistress. We cut across the village. Its house) were sordid. But by each of the most wretched, of thos, that looked as though they had been scorched and brandei by a rain of brimstone, a mysterious traveller, halting fo. a day in the accursed city, a resplendent angel stood ereci extending broadly over it the dazzling protection of th wings of flowering innocence: it was a pear tree, Saint Loup drew me a little way in front to explain: | “T should have liked if you and I could have bee alone together, in fact I would much rather have ha luncheon just with et and stayed with you until it wa time to go to my aunt’s. But this poor girl of mine her it is such a pleasure to her, and she is so decent to mc don’t you know, I hadn’t the heart to refuse her. You’) like her, however, she’s literary, you know, a most ser sitive nature, and besides it’s such a pleasure to be wit her in a restaurant, she is so charming, so simple, alway, delighted with everything.” I fancy nevertheless that, on this same morning, an then probably for the first and last time, Robert di detach himself for a moment from the woman whom ov of successive layers of affection he had gradually create and beheld suddenly at some distance from himself ai 9 other Rachel, outwardly the double of his but entirel different, who was nothing more or less than a little lig § of love. We had left the blossoming orchard and wei making for the train which was to take us to Paris whe | at the station, Rachel, who was walking by herself, wi 216 THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘ecognised and accosted by a pair of common little tarts” like herself, who first of all, thinking that she vas alone, called out: “ Hello, Rachel, you come with us; jucienne and Germaine are in the train, and there’s room ‘or one more. Come on. We’re all going to the rink,” ‘nd were just going to introduce to her two counter- ampers, their lovers, who were escorting them, when, oticing that she seemed a little uneasy, they looked up nd beyond her, caught sight of us, and with apolo- ies bade her a good-bye to which she responded in somewhat embarrassed, but still friendly tone. They rere two poor little “tarts” with collars of sham otter ‘kin, looking more or less as Rachel must have looked vhen Saint-Loup first met her. He did not know them, or Qeir names even, and seeing that they appeared to be xtremely intimate with his mistress he could not help yondering whether she too might not once have had, had ‘ot still perhaps her place in a life of which he had never teamed, utterly different from the life she led with him, ‘life in which one had women for a louis apiece, eres ' Was giving more than a hundred thousand francs a ear to Rachel. He caught only a fleeting glimpse of that es but saw also in the thick of it a Rachel other than Mt er whom he knew, a Rachel like the two little “ tarts ” the train, a twenty-franc Rachel. In short, Rachel had wr the moment duplicated herself in his eyes, he had en, at some distance from his own Rachel, the little tart” Rachel, the real Rachel, assuming that Rachel pie “tart” was more real than the other. It may then ave occurred to Robert that from the hell in which he ‘as living, with the prospect of a rich marriage, of the sale ‘his name, to enable him to go on giving Rachel a hun- 217 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | dred thousand francs every year, he might easily perhap have escaped, and have enjoyed the favours of his mistres; as the two counter-jumpers enjoyed those of their girl for next to nothing. But how was it to be done? She hal done nothing to forfeit his regard. Less generously re warded she would be less kind to him, would stop sayin) and writing the things that so deeply moved him, thing which he would quote, with a touch of ostentation, to hi friends, taking care to point out how nice it was of h to say them, but omitting to mention that he was mair taining her in the most lavish fashion, or even that he eve gave her anything at all, that these inscriptions on phote graphs, or greetings at the end of telegrams were but th conversion into the most exiguous, the most precious ; currencies of a hundred thousand francs. If he took car not to admit that these rare kindnesses on Rachel’s pai were handsomely paid for by himself, it would be wron to say—and yet, by a crude piece of reasoning, we do sa it, absurdly, of every lover who pays in cash for hi pleasure, and of a great many husbands—that this we from self-esteem or vanity. Saint-Loup had enough sens to perceive that all the pleasures which appeal to vee he could have found easily and without cost to himse in society, on the strength of his historic name and hane some face, and that his connexion with Rachel had rathe if anything, tended to ostracise him, led to his being le: sought after. No; this self-esteem which seeks to apper, to be receiving gratuitously the outward signs of the affe tion of her whom one loves is simply a consequence j love, the need to figure in one’s own eyes and in oth¢ people’s as loved in return by the person whom one lov so well. Rachel rejoined us, leaving the two “tarts” t 218 ~ | THE GUERMANTES WAY et into their compartment; but, no less than their sham ster skins and the self-conscious appearance of their oung men, the names Lucienne and Germaine kept the aw Rachel alive for a moment longer. For a moment .obert imagined a Place Pigalle existence with unknown ssociates, sordid love affairs, afternoons spent in simple musements, excursions or pleasure-parties, in that Paris 1 which the sunny brightness of the streets from the oulevard de Clichy onwards did not seem the same as a solar radiance in which he himself strolled with his listress, but must be something different, for love, and affering which is one with love have, like intoxication, the ower to alter for us inanimate things. It was almost an nknown Paris in the heart of Paris itself that he sus- ected, his connexion appeared to him like the explora- on of a strange form of life, for if when with him Rachel as somewhat similar to himself, it was nevertheless a art of her real life that she lived with him, indeed the iost precious part, in view of his reckless expenditure on sr, the part that made her so greatly envied by her friends nd would enable her one day to retire to the country or ) establish herself in the leading theatres, when she had uade her pile. Robert longed to ask her who Lucienne nd Germaine were, what they would have said to her if 1¢ had joined them in their compartment, how they would il have spent a day which would have perhaps ended, as a apreme diversion, after the pleasures of the rink, at the Mympia Tavern, if Robert and I had not been there. For moment the purlieus of the Olympia, which until then ad seemed to him merely deadly dull, aroused curiosity in im and pain, and the sunshine of this spring day beating pon the Rue Caumartin where, possibly, if she had not 219 =—— REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | known Robert, Rachel might have gone in the course o the evening and have earned a louis, filled him with ¢ vague longing. But what use was it to ply Rachel wit! questions when he already knew that her answer woul be merely silence, or a lie, or something extremely painfu for him to hear, which would yet explain nothing, Thi porters were shutting the doors; we jumped into a first, class carriage; Rachel’s magnificent pearls reminded Robert that she was a woman of great price, he caressec her, restored her to her place in his heart where he coulc contemplate her, internalised, as he had always doni hitherto—save during this brief instant in which he hac seen her in the Place Pigalle of an impressionist painter— and the train began to move. It was, by the way, quite true that she was “ literary”. She never stopped talking to me about books, new art anc Tolstoyism except to rebuke Saint-Loup for drinking s¢ much wine: “Ah! If you could live with me for a year, we’ld see | fine change. I should keep you on water and you'ld be ever so much better.” | “Right you are. Let’s begin now.” ‘ “But you know quite well I have to work all day! For she took her art very seriously. “ Besides, what would your people say?” j And she began to abuse his family to me in terms whicl for that matter seemed to me highly reasonable, and wit! which Saint-Loup, while disobeying her orders in the mat. ter of champagne, entirely concurred. I, who was so muct afraid of the effect of wine on him, and felt the good influence of his mistress, was quite prepared to advise him to let his family go hang. Tears sprang to the young 220 | THE GUERMANTES WAY oman’s eyes; I had been rash enough to refer to reyfus. ‘“The poor martyr!” she almost sobbed; “it will be ie death of him in that dreadful place.” “Don’t upset yourself, Zézette, he will come back, he ill be acquitted all right, they will admit they’ve made a listake.” /“But long before then he’ll be dead! Oh, well at any ste his children will bear a stainless name. But just think ‘the agony he must be going through; that’s what makes y heart bleed. And would you believe that Robert’s other, a pious woman, says that he Caebs to be left on 1e Devil’s Isle, even if he is innocent; isn’t it appalling? ” “Yes, it’s absolutely true, she shee say that,” Robert sured me. “She’s my mother, I’ve no fault to find with or, but it’s site clear she hasn’t got a sensitive nature, xe Zezette.” As a matter of fact these luncheons which were said be “such a pleasure” always ended in trouble. For as yon as Saint-Loup found himself in a public place with ‘8 mistress, he would imagine that she was looking at very other man in the room, and his brow would darken; se would remark his ill-humour, which she may have ought it amusing to encourage, or, as was more probable, 7 a foolish piece of conceit preferred, feeling wounded by \s tone, not to appear to be seeking to disarm; and would ake a show of being unable to take her eyes off some an or other, not that this was always a mere pretence. 1 fact, the gentleman who, in theatre or café, happened | Sit next to them, or, to go no farther, the driver of the \b they had engaged need only have something attractive yout him, no matter what, and Robert, his perception 221 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST quickened by jealousy, would have noticed it before I mistress; he would see in him immediately one of tha foul creatures whom he had denounced to me at Balby who corrupted and dishonoured women for their oy amusement, would beg his mistress to take her eyes ( the man, thereby drawing her attention to him. And som. times she found that Robert had shewn such good jud. ment in his suspicion that after a little she even left ¢ teasing him in order that he might calm down and co. sent to go off by himself on some errand which wou give her time to begin conversation with the stranger, oft} to make an assignation, sometimes even to bring me ters quickly to a head. I could see as soon as we e tered the restaurant that Robert was looking trouble| The fact of the matter was that he had at once remarke what had escaped our notice at Balbec, namely that, stan: ing among his coarser colleagues, Aimé, with a mode brilliance, emitted, quite unconsciously of course, th air of romance which emanates until a certain period | life from fine hair and a grecian nose, features thanks which he was distinguishable among the crowd of waite: The others, almost all of them well on in years, present a series of types, extraordinarily ugly and criminal, hypocritical priests, sanctimonious confessors, more n! merously of comic actors of the old school, whose suga loaf foreheads are scarcely to be seen nowadays outsi the collections of portraits that hang in the humbly hi toric green-rooms of little, out of date theatres, where thi are represented in the parts of servants or high priesi though this restaurant seemed, thanks to a select’ method of recruiting and perhaps to some system | hereditary nomination, to have preserved their solen. 222 L | | THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘pe in a sort of College of Augurs. As ill luck would Ave it, Aimé having recognised us, it was he who came { take our order, while the procession of operatic high jiests swept past us to other tables. Aimé inquired after iy grandmother’s health; I asked for news of his wife id children. He gave it with emotion, being a family an. He had an intelligent, vigorous, but respectful air. obert’s mistress began to gaze at him with a strange tentiveness. But Aimé’s sunken eyes, in which a slight sort-sightedness gave one the impression of veiled depths, cewed no sign of consciousness in his still face. In the | i. hotel in which he had served for many years fore coming to Balbec, the charming sketch, now a tfle discoloured and faded, which was his face, and which, f: all those years, like some engraved portrait of Prince ligene, had been visible always at the same place, at tz far end of a dining-room that was almost always apty, could not have attracted any very curious gaze. I; had thus for long remained, doubtless for want of smpathetic admirers, in ignorance of the artistic value chis face, and but little inclined for that matter to draw #ention to it, for he was temperamentally cold. At the Ist, some passing Parisian, stopping for some reason in tz town, had raised her eyes to his, had asked him per- ips to bring something to her in her room before she It for the station, and in the pellucid, monotonous, deep vid of this existence of a faithful husband and servant a country town had hidden the secret of a caprice with- t sequel which no one would ever bring to light. And : Aimé must have been conscious of the insistent em- asis with which the eyes of the young actress were ‘tened upon him now. Anyhow, it did not escape Robert, | 223 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | beneath whose skin I saw gathering a flush, not vivid lik that which burned his cheeks when he felt any “- emotion, but faint, diffused. “Anything specially interesting about that wal Zézette?” he inquired, after sharply dismissing Aim) “One would think you were studying the part.” i “There you are, beginning again; I knew it a coming.” | “ Beginning what again, my dear girl? I may have be mistaken; I haven’t said anything, I’m sure. But I hay at least the right to warn you against the fellow, seeir that I knew him at Balbec (otherwise I shouldn’t give) damn), and a bigger scoundrel doesn’t walk the face | the earth.” | She seemed anxious to pacify Robert and began } engage me in a literary conversation in which he joined.| found that it did not bore me to talk to her, for she hi a thorough knowledge of the books that I most admire and her opinion of them agreed more or less with my ow} but as I had heard Mme. de Villeparisis declare that s} had no talent, I attached but little importance to this e' dence of culture. She discoursed wittily on all manner f topics, and would have been genuinely entertaining hi she not affected to an irritating extent the jargon of t? sets and studios. She applied this, moreover, to everythi} under the sun; for instance, having acquired the habit f saying of a picture, if it were impressionist, or an ope, if Wagnerian, “Ah! That is good!” one day when4 young man had kissed her on the ear, and, touched by ! pretence of being thrilled, had affected modesty, she sa “Yes, as a sensation I call it distinctly good.” But wlt most surprised me was that the expressions peculiar ¢ 224 a i | | THE GUERMANTES WAY pbert (which, moreover, had come to him, perhaps, from jzrary men whom she knew) were used by her to him ad by him to her as though they had been a necessary »m of speech, and without any conception of the point- ysness of an originality that is universal. In eating, she managed her hands so clumsily that one giumed that she must appear extremely awkward upon : stage. She recovered her dexterity only when making ve, with that touching prescience latent in women who ve the male body so intensely that they immediately ess what will give most pleasure to that body, which is - so different from their own. [ceased to take part in the conversation when it turned ‘on the theatre, for on that topic Rachel was too ma- jous for my liking. She did, it was true, take up in a le of commiseration—against Saint-Loup, which proved it he was accustomed to hearing Rachel attack her—the ‘ence of Berma, saying: “Oh, no, she’s a wonderful “son, really. Of course, the things she does no longer aoeal to us, they don’t correspond quite to what we are king for, but one must think of her at the period to ich she belongs; we owe her a great deal. She has done Md work, you know. And besides she’s such a fine man, she has such a good heart; naturally she doesn’t e about the things that interest us, but she has had in hy time, with a rather impressive face, a charming quality mind.” (Our fingers, by the way, do not play the same ‘ompaniment to all our aesthetic judgments. If it is a ture that is under discussion, to shew that it is a fine tk with plenty of paint, it is enough to stick out one’s mb. But the “charming quality of mind” is more tcting. It requires two fingers, or rather two finger- 225 re) REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST nails, as though one were trying to flick off a particlef dust.) But, with this single exception, Saint-Loup’s Tn tress referred to the best-known actresses in a tone ironical superiority which annoyed me because I belieyd —dquite mistakenly, as it happened—that it was she we was inferior to them. She was clearly aware that I mt regard her as an indifferent actress, and on the other had have a great regard for those she despised. But ce shewed no resentment, because there is in all great talat while it is still, as hers was then, unrecognised, howe'r sure it may be of itself, a vein of humility, and because ¢ make the consideration that we expect from others pi portionate not to our latent powers but to the position which we have attained. (I was, an hour or so later, the theatre, to see Saint-Loup’s mistress shew great def ence towards those very artists against whom she ys now bringing so harsh a judgment to bear.) And so,n however little doubt my silence may have left her, ie insisted nevertheless on our dining together that eveniy assuring me that.never had anyone’s conversation » lighted her so much as mine. If we were not yet in theatre, to which we were to go after luncheon, we had sense of being in a green-room hung with portraits of d members of the company, so markedly were the waité faces those which, one thought, had perished with a whe peneration of obscure actors of the Palais-Royal; tly had a look, also, of Academicians; stopping before a s table one of them was examining a dish of pears wh the expression of detached curiosity that M. de Jussi might have worn. Others, on either side of him, wi casting about the room that gaze instinct with curios} and coldness which Members of the Institute, who i 226 — THE GUERMANTES WAY bg early, throw at the public, while they exchange a . murmured words which one fails to catch. They were ges well known to all the regular guests. One of them, wever, was being pointed out, a newcomer with dis- ded nostrils and a smug upper lip, who looked like a es he was entering upon his duties there for the t time, and everyone gazed with interest at this newly ected candidate. But presently, perhaps to drive Robert ay so that she might be alone with Aimé, Rachel began «make eyes at a young student, who was feeding with pther man at a neighbouring table. ‘ Zezette, let me beg you not to look at that young man je that,” said Saint-Loup, on whose face the hesitating sh of a moment ago had been gathered now into a irlet tide which dilated and darkened his swollen fea- 28, “if you must make a scene here, I shall simply finish ung by myself and join you at the theatre afterwards.” At this point a messenger came up to tell Aimé that was wanted to speak to a gentleman in a carriage side. Saint-Loup, ever uneasy, and afraid now that it tht be some message of an amorous nature that was to ‘conveyed to his mistress, looked out of the window 1 saw there, sitting up in his brougham, his hands tly buttoned in white gloves with black seams, a wer in his buttonhole, M. de Charlus. There; you see!” he said to me in a low voice, “ my lily hunt me down even here. Will you, please—I can’t y well do it myself, but you can, as you know the 'd waiter so well and he’s certain to give us away— him not to go to the carriage. He can always send 1e other waiter who doesn’t know me. I know my le; if they tell him that I’m not known here, he’ll 227 - REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST never come inside to look for me, he loathes this s) of place. Really, it’s pretty disgusting that an old pe} coat-chaser like him, who is still at it, too, should § perpetually lecturing me and coming to spy on me!” | Aimé on receiving my instructions sent one of his 4 derlings to explain that he was busy and could not co out at the moment, and (should the gentleman ask the Marquis de Saint-Loup) that they did not know a such person. But Saint-Loup’s mistress, who had fai to catch our whispered conversation and thought ti it was still about the young man at whom Robert kt been finding fault with her for making eyes, broke in a torrent of rage. “Oh, indeed! So it’s the young man over there, ni is it? Thank you for telling me; it’s a real pleasure} have this sort of thing with one’s meals! Don’t listen! him, please; he’s rather cross to-day, and, you knoy She went on, turning to me, “he just says it because} thinks it smart, that it’s the gentlemanly thing to app jealous always.” | And she began with feet and fingers to shew signs) nervous irritation. “But, Zezette, it is I who find it unpleasant. You } making us all ridiculous before that gentleman, who } begin to imagine you’re making overtures to him, ¢ an impossible bounder he looks, too.” “Oh, no, I think he’s charming; for one thing, f got the most adorable eyes, and a way of looking women—you can feel he must love them.” “You can at least keep quiet until I’ve left the roc if you have lost your senses,” cried Robert. “ Waiter, | things.” 228 THE GUERMANTES WAY did not know whether I was expected to follow him. ‘No, I want to be alone,” he told me in the same tone which he had just been addressing his mistress, and if he were quite furious with me. His anger was like ingle musical phrase to which in an opera several lines . sung which are entirely different from one another, me studies the words, in meaning and character, but ich the music assimilates by a common sentiment. wen Robert had gone, his mistress called Aimé and ed him various questions. She then wanted to know at I thought of him. An amusing expression, hasn’t he? Do you know at I should like; it would be to know what he really iks about things, to have him wait on me often, to e him travelling. But that would be all. If we were ected to love all the people who attract us, life would jpretty ghastly, wouldn’t it? It’s silly of Robert to ideas like that. All that sort of thing, it’s only just at comes into my head, that’s all; Robert has nothing vorry about.” She was still gazing at Aimé. “ Do look, at dark eyes he has. I should love to know what there yehind them.” ‘resently came a message that Robert was waiting for in a private room, to which he had gone to finish luncheon, by another door, without having to pass ough the restaurant again. I thus found myself alone, il I too was summoned by Robert. I found his mis- 's stretched out on a sofa laughing under the kisses . caresses that he was showering on her. They were aking champagne. “Hallo, you!” she cried to him, ing recently picked up this formula which seemed to the last word in playfulness and wit. I had fed badly, 229 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | | I was extremely uncomfortable, and: albeit Legrand) words had had no effect on me I was sorry to think tj I was beginning in a back room of a restaurant and te be finishing in the wings of a theatre this first afternoon) spring. Looking first at the time to see that she was making herself late, she offered me a glass of champag handed me one of her Turkish cigarettes and unpini a rose for me from her bodice. Whereupon I said to } self: “I have nothing much to regret, after all; th hours spent in this young woman’s company are wasted, since I have had from her, charming gifts wt! could not be bought too dear, a rose, a scented cigaré and a glass of champagne.” I told myself this beca\ I felt that it endowed with an aesthetic character ¢ thereby justified, saved these hours of boredom. I ouj perhaps to have reflected that the very need which I of a reason that would console me for my boredom sufficient to prove that I was experiencing no aesthi sensation. As for Robert and his mistress, they appeal to have no recollection of the quarrel which had b raging between them a few minutes earlier, or of | having been a witness of it. They made no allusion\ it, sought no excuse for it any more than for the conti} with it which their present conduct formed. By dint) drinking champagne with them, I began to feel a li of the intoxication that used to come over me at Ri belle, though probably not quite the same. Not o! every kind of intoxication, from that which the sun} travelling gives us to that which we get from exhaust! or wine, but every degree of intoxication—and each mi have a different figure, like the numbers of fathoms o| chart—lays bare in us exactly at the depth to whicli 230 ——- | THE GUERMANTES WAY | ties a different kind of man. The room which Saint- pup had taken was small, but the mirror which was its le ornament was of such a kind that it seemed to reflect jirty others in an endless vista; and the electric bulb jaced at the top of the frame must at night, when the cht was on, followed by the procession ar thirty flashes milar to its own, give to the drinker, even when alone, fe idea that the surrounding space was multiplying itself multaneously with his sensations heightened by intoxica- pn, and that, shut up by himself in this little cell, he as reigning nevertheless over something far more ex- fasive in its indefinite luminous curve than a passage in te Jardin de Paris. Being then myself at this moment ie said drinker, suddenly, looking for him in the glass, caught sight of him, hideous, a stranger, who was ing at me. The j joy at intoxication was stronger than y disgust; from gaiety or bravado I smiled at him, and multaneously he smiled back at me. And I felt myself » much under the ephemeral and potent sway of the ‘mute in which our sensations are so strong, that I am t sure whether my sole regret was not at the thought at this hideous self of whom I had just caught sight in 2 glass was perhaps there for the last time on earth, 'd that I should never meet the stranger again in the nole course of my life. Robert was annoyed only because I was not being more illiant before his mistress. “What about that fellow you met this morning, who mbines snobbery with astronomy; tell her about him, e forgotten the story,” and he watched her furtively. “But, my dear boy, there’s nothing more than what ‘u've just said,” 231 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “What a bore you are. Then tell her about Frango): in the Champs-Elysées. She’ll enjoy that.” | “Oh, do! Bobby is always talking about Francoise And taking Saint-Loup by the chin, she repeated, for wal of anything more original, drawing the said chin near to the light: “ Hallo, you! ” | Since actors had ceased to be for me exclusively t} depositaries, in their diction and playing, of an artis truth, they had begun to interest me in themselves; | amused myself, pretending that what I saw before rf: were the characters in some old humorous novel, i watching, struck by the fresh face of the young mi who had just come into the stalls, the heroine list} distractedly to the declaration of love which the juven} lead in the piece was addressing to her, while he, throu} the fiery torrent of his impassioned speech, still kept) burning gaze fixed on an old lady seated in a stage be whose magnificent pearls had caught his eye; and thi, thanks especially to the information that Saint-Loup ga} me as to the private lives of the players, I saw anothi drama, mute but expressive, enacted beneath the words} the spoken drama which in itself, although of no met, interested me also; for I could feel in it that there we: budding and opening for an hour in the glare of t! footlights, created out of the agglutination on the fa! of an actor of another face of grease paint and pasteboat, on his own human soul the words of a part. Li These ephemeral vivid personalities which the che acters are in a play that is entertaining also, whom oO} loves, admires, pities, whom one would like to see agal after one has left the theatre, but who by that time a} already disintegrated into a comedian who is no long’ 232 THE GUERMANTES WAY the position which he occupied in the play, a text iich no longer shews one the comedian’s face, a coloured wder which a handkerchief wipes off, who have re- ned in short to elements that contain nothing of them, ice their dissolution, effected so soon after the end of 2 show, make us—like the dissolution of a dear friend— gin to doubt the reality of our ego and meditate on 2 mystery of death. ‘One number in the programme I found extremely try- x A young woman whom Rachel and some of her a disliked was, with a set of old songs, to make first appearance on which she had based all her hopes t the future of herself and her family. This young »man was blessed with unduly, almost grotesquely pro- ment hips and a pretty but too slight voice, weakened it farther by her excitement and in marked contrast ‘her muscular development. Rachel had posted among 2 audience a certain number of friends, male and female, lose business it was by their sarcastic comments to put 2 novice, who was known to be timid, out of counten- ce, to make her lose her head so that her turn should Ove a complete failure, after which the manager would fuse to give her a contract. At the first notes uttered » the wretched woman, several of the male audience, sruited for that purpose, began pointing to her backward ofile with jocular comments, several of the women, 0 in the plot, laughed out loud, each flute-like note mm the stage increased the deliberate hilarity, which 2w to a public scandal. The unhappy woman, sweat- 3 with anguish through her grease-paint, tried for a tle longer to hold out, then stopped and looked round 2 audience with an appealing gaze of misery and anger 233 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST which succeeded only in increasing the uproar. The i, stinct to imitate others, the desire to shew their oi wit and daring added to the party several pretty actress) who had not been forewarned but now threw at the othe glances charged with malicious connivance, and sat co! vulsed with laughter which rang out in such violent pee. that at the end of the second song, although there i still five more on the programme, the stage manag rang down the curtain. I tried to make myself pay 1 more heed to the incident than I had paid to n grandmother’s sufferings when my great-aunt, to tea her, used to give my grandfather brandy, the idea | deliberate wickedness being too painful for me to bez And yet, just as our pity for misfortune is perhaps n very exact since in our imagination we recreate a whe world of grief by which the unfortunate who has struggle against it has no time to think of being movi to self-pity, so wickedness has probably not in the mir of the wicked man that pure and voluptuous cruelty whir it so pains us to imagine. Hatred inspires him, ang) gives him an ardour, an activity in which there is 1 great joy; he must be a sadist to extract any pleasu} from it; ordinarily, the wicked man supposes himself ! be punishing the wickedness of his victim; Rael imagined certainly that the actress whom she was makil suffer was far from being of interest to any one, al that anyhow, in having her hissed off the stage, she w herself avenging an outrage on good taste and teachill an unworthy comrade a lesson. Nevertheless, I preferri not to speak of this incident since I had had neither tl THE GUERMANTES WAY ctim, to approximate to a gratification of the lust for uelty the sentiments which animated the tormentors ho had strangled this career in its infancy. /But the opening scene of this afternoon’s performance terested me in quite another way. It made me realise _ part the nature of the illusion of which Saint-Loup as a victim with regard to Rachel, and which had set | gulf between the images that he and I respectively had mind of his mistress, when we beheld her that morn- g among the blossoming pear trees. Rachel was playing part which involved barely more than her walking on the little play. But seen thus, she was another woman. ae had one of those faces to which distance—and not ocessarily that between stalls and stage, the world being _this respect only a larger theatre—gives form and out- ae and which, seen close at hand, dissolve back into ast. Standing beside her one saw only a nebula, a milky ay of freckles, of tiny spots, nothing more. At a proper stance, all this ceased to be visible and, from cheeks lat withdrew, were reabsorbed into her face, rose like ‘crescent moon a nose so fine, so pure that one would ive liked to be the object of Rachel’s attention, to see Be again as often as one chose, to keep her close to one, ‘ovided that one had not already seen her differently id at close range. This was not my case but it had sen Saint-Loup’s when he first saw her on the stage. hen he had asked himself how he might approach her, yw come to know her, there had opened in him a whole iry realm—that in which she lived—from which ema- wted an exquisite radiance but into which he might not metrate. He had left the theatre telling himself that it ould be madness to write to her, that she would not 235 | | | { REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST : answer his letter, quite prepared to give his fortune and his name for the creature who was living in him it a world so vastly superior to those too familiar | a world made beautiful by desire and dreams of happi ness, when at the back of the theatre, a little old buildin: which had itself the air of being a piece of scenery, te the stage door he saw debouch the gay and daintily hatte band of actresses who had just been playing. Young meil who knew them were waiting for them outside. The num ber of pawns on the human chessboard being less thay the number of combinations that they are capable o forming, in a theatre from which are absent all the peopl! we know and might have expected to find, there turns uy cne whom we never imagined that we should see aga and who appears so opportunely that the coincidene| seems to us providential, although no doubt some othe! coincidence would have occurred in its stead had we bee not in that place but in some other, where other desire! would have been aroused and we should have met som! other old acquaintance to help us to satisfy them. Thi golden portals of the world of dreams had closed agail upon Rachel before Saint-Loup saw her emerge from th theatre, so that the freckles and spots were of little im. portance. They vexed him nevertheless, especially as being no longer alone, he had not now the same oppor: tunity to dream as in the theatre. But she, for all tha he could no longer see her, continued to dictate his actions| like those stars which govern us by their attraction evei/ during the hours in which they are not visible to ou’ eyes. And so his desire for the actress with the fini features which had no place now even in Robert’s memor) had the result that, dashing towards the old friend whon 236 THE GUERMANTES WAY vance had brought to the spot, he insisted upon an ‘troduction to the person with no features and with eckles, since she was the same person, telling himself vat later on he would take care to find out which of the vo this same person really was. She was in a hurry, she (d not on this occasion say a single word to Saint-Loup, ad it was only some days later that he finally contrived, I inducing her to leave her companions, to escort her yme. He loved her already. The need for dreams, the | sire to be made happy by her of whom oné has ance ing it about that not much time is required before we entrusts all one’s chances of happiness to her who a w days since was but a fortuitous apparition, unknown, ameaning, upon the boards of the theatre. ‘When, the curtain having fallen, we moved on to the age, alarmed at finding myself there for the first time, ,felt the need to begin a spirited conversation with nint-Loup. In this way my attitude, as I did not know hat one ought to adopt in a setting that was strange ' me, would be entirely dominated by our talk, and Wipe would think that I was so absorbed in it, so un- servant of my surroundings, that it was quite natural ‘at I should not shew the facial expressions proper to place in which, to judge by what I appeared to be ying, I was barely conscious of standing; and seizing, ) make a beginning, upon the first topic that came to y mind: “You know,” I said, “I did come to say good-bye to ou the day I left Donciéres; I’ve not had an opportunity mention it. I waved to you in the street.” “Don’t speak about it,” he replied, “I was so sorry. passed you just outside the barracks, but I couldn’t 237 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST stop because I was late already. I assure you, I felt qui wretched about it.” So he had recognised me! I saw again in my mir the wholly impersonal salute which he had given m raising his hand to his cap, without a glance to indica that he knew me, without a gesture to shew that he wi sorry he could not stop. Evidently this fiction, which ] had adopted at that moment, of not knowing me mu have simplified matters for him greatly. But I was amazi’ to find that he had been able to compose himself to) so swiftly and without any instinctive movement to betr? his original impression. I had already observed at Balb that, side by side with that childlike sincerity of his fac the skin of which by its transparence rendered visible t} sudden tide of certain emotions, his body had been aj mirably trained to perform a certain number of we; bred dissimulations, and that, like a consummate actc he could, in his regimental and in his social life, ply alternately quite different parts. In one of his parts f loved me tenderly, he acted towards me almost as | he had been my brother; my brother he had been, | was now again, but for a moment that day he had bal another person who did not know me and who, holding t} reins, his glass screwed to his eye, without a look ; a smile had lifted his disengaged hand to the peak of I} cap to give me correctly the military salute. The stage scenery, still in its place, among which I w passing, seen thus at close range and without the a vantage of any of those effects iat lighting and distan on which the eminent artist whose brush had painted had calculated, was a depressing sight, and Rachel, whi I came near her, was subjected to a no less destructi} 238 <—w 5 — i gg | | | THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘ce. The curves of her charming nose had stood out | perspective, between stalls and stage, like the relief ‘the scenery. It was no longer herself, I recognised her ly thanks to her eyes, in which her identity had taken ‘uge. The form, the radiance of this young star, so illiant a moment ago, had vanished. On the other Ind—as though we came close to the moon and. it ased to present the appearance of a disk of rosy gold— this face, so smooth a surface until now, I could distin- ish only protuberances, discolourations, cavities. De- ‘ite the incoherence into which were resolved at close lage not only the feminine features but the painted nvas, I was glad to be there to wander among the emery, all that setting which at one time my love of fture had prompted me to dismiss as tedious and arti- ial until the description of it by Goethe in Wilhelm leister had given it a sort of beauty in my eyes; and had already observed with delight, in the thick of a owd of journalists or men of fashion, friends of the tresses, who were greeting one another, talking, smok- y, as though in a public thoroughfare, a young man a black velvet cap and hortensia coloured skirt, his eeks chalked in red like a page from a Watteau oum, who with his smiling lips, his eyes raised to the iling, as he sprang lightly into the air, seemed so ‘tirely of another species than the rational folk in every y clothes, in the midst of whom he was pursuing like madman the course of his ecstatic dream, so alien to © preoccupations of their life, so anterior to the habits their civilisation, so enfranchised from all the laws of ture, that it was as restful and as fresh a spectacle as atching a butterfly straying along a crowded street to 239 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST follow with one’s eyes, between the strips of canvas, the natural arabesques traced by his winged capricious paintec oscillations. But at that moment Saint-Loup conceived o idea that his mistress was paying undue attention to thi dancer, who was engaged now in practising for the las’ time the figure of fun with which he was going to take the stage, a his face darkened. : ‘4 You might look the other way,” he warned he: gloomily. es Y ou know that none of those dancer-fellow: is worth the rope they can at least fall off and break their necks, and they’re the sort of people who go abou afterwards boasting that you’ve taken notice of them Besides, you know very well you’ve been told to go t your Ag RRS and change. You'll be missing you: call again.’ A group of men—journalists—noticing the look of fae on Saint-Loup’s face, came nearer, amused, to listen ti what we were saying. And as the stage-hands had jus set up some scenery on our other ane we were ‘or into close contact with them. “Oh, but I know him; he’s a friend of mine,” oi Saint-Loup’s mistress, ee eyes still fixed on the dances “Took how well made he is, do watch those little han of his dancing away by themselves like his whole body!! | The dancer turned his head towards her, and his huma) person appeared beneath the sylph that he was en deavouring to be, the clear grey jelly of his eyes tremiial and sparkled between eyelids stiff with paint, and a smi extended the corners of his mouth into cheeks plastemy with rouge; then, to amuse the girl, like a singer wh hums to oblige us the air of the song in which we hay told her that we admired her singing, he began to repez 240 | THE GUERMANTES WAY he movement of his hands, counterfeiting himself with he fineness of a parodist and the good humour of a child. “Oh, that’s too lovely, the way he copies himself,” he cried, clapping her hands. “T implore you, my dearest girl,” Saint-Loup broke in, 1 a tone of utter misery, “do not make a scene here, can’t stand it; I swear, if you say another word I ont go with you to your room, I shall walk straight ut; come, don’t be so naughty... . You oughtn’t to land about in the cigar smoke like that, itll make you 1,” he went on, to me, with the solicitude he had shewn or me in our Balbec days. ~“Oh! What a good thing it would be if you did go.” “YT warn you, if I do I shan’t come back.” '©That’s more than I should venture to hope.” “Listen; you know, I promised you the necklace if ‘ou behaved nicely to me, but the moment you treat me ke ag “Ah! Well, that doesn’t surprise me in the least. You ave me your promise; I ought to have known scale ever keep it. You want the whole world to know you’re rade of money, but I’m not a money-grubber like you. ‘ou can keep your Pikes necklace; I know some one Ise who'll give it to me.’ . “No one else can possibly give it to you; I’ve told toucheron he’s to keep it for We and I have his promise ot to let anyone else have it.” « There you are, trying to blackmail me, you’ve ar- anged everything I see. That’s what they mean by farsantes, Mater Semita, it smells of the race,” re- orted Rachel, quoting an etymology which was founded I: a wild misinterpretation, for Semita means “ path” I 241 P \ REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST and not “ Semite ”, but one which the Nationalists applie to Saint-Loup on account of the Dreyfusard views fy which, so far as that went, he was indebted to the actres| She was less entitled than anyone to apply the wor “Jew” to Mme. de Marsantes, in whom the ethnologis) of society could succeed in finding no trace of Judais! apart from her connexion with the Lévy-Mirepoix famil like that isn’t binding. You have acted treacherously t wards me. Boucheron shall be told of it and he’ll be pa} twice as much for his necklace. You’ll hear from me b) fore long; don’t you worry.” Robert was in the right a hundred times over. B circumstances are always so entangled that the man wi is in the right a hundred times may have been once | the wrong. And I could not help recalling that i pleasant and yet quite innocent expression which he hé used at Balbec: “In that way I keep a hold over her * You don’t understand what I mean about the nec’ lace. I made no formal promise: once you start doi everything you possibly can to make me leave you, 7 only natural, surely, that I shouldn’t give it to you; I fi to understand what treachery you can see in that, or wh my ulterior motive is supposed to be. You can’t serious) maintain that I brag about my money, I’m always tellix, you that I’m only a poor devil without a cent to my nam, It’s foolish of you to take it in that way, my dear. Wh possible interest can I have in hurting you? You kno very well that my one interest fe life is yourself.” “Oh, yes, yes, please go on,” she retorted ironicall with the sweeping gesture of a barber wielding his rag And turning to watch the dancer: 242 — a | THE GUERMANTES WAY “Tsn’t he too wonderful with his hands. A woman like e couldn’t do the things he’s doing now.” She went oser to him and, pointing to Robert’s furious face: Look, he’s hurt,” she murmured, in the momentary ation of a sadic impulse to cruelty totally out of keeping ith her genuine feelings of affection for Saint-Loup. “Listen, for the last time, I swear to you it doesn’t Bc: what you do—in a week you'll be giving any- ung to get me back—I shan’t come; it’s a clean cut, 9 you hear, it’s irrevocable; you will be sorry one day, hen it’s too late.” Perhaps he was sincere in saying this, and the torture ‘leaving his mistress may have seemed to him less cruel aan that of remaining with her in certain circumstances. ‘“ But, my dear boy,” he went on, to me, “ you oughtn’t » stand about here, I tell you, it will make you cough.” I pointed to the scenery which barred my way. He vuched his hat and said to one of the journalists: ‘*Would you mind, sir, throwing away your cigar; the moke is bad for my friend.” -His mistress had not waited for him to accompany er; on her way to her dressing-room she turned round ad: “Do they do those tricks with women too, those nice ttle hands?” she flung to the dancer from the back of le stage, in an artificially melodious tone of girlish inno- ence. “ You look just like one yourself, I’m sure I could ave a wonderful time with you and a girl I know.” “There’s no rule against smoking that I know of; if eople aren’t well, they have only to stay at home,” said le journalist. |The dancer smiled mysteriously back at the actress. 243 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “Oh! Do stop! You'll make me quite mad,” she cri to him. “ Then there will be trouble.” | “Tn any case, sir, you are not very civil,” observe Saint-Loup to the journalist, still with a courteous suavit in the deliberate manner of a man judging retrospective the rights and wrongs of an incident that is already close) At that moment I saw Saint-Loup raise his arm ve tically above his head as if he had been making a sign to some one whom I could not see, or like the conduct of an orchestra, and indeed—without any greater tran: tion than when, at a simple wave of the baton, in a syt phony or a ballet, violent rhythms succeed a gracef andante—after the courteous words that he had jy uttered he brought down his hand with a resoundi smack upon the journalist’s cheek. | Now that to the measured conversations of the dip mats, to the smiling arts of peace had succeeded t furious onthrust of war, since blows lead to blows, should not have been surprised to see the combatar swimming in one another’s blood. But what I could nj understand (like people who feel that it is not accordi} to the rules when a war breaks out between two countri after some question merely of the rectification of frontier, or when a sick man dies after nothing mo! serious than a swelling of the liver) was how Saint-Lo had contrived to follow up those words, which implied distinct shade of friendliness, with an action which in: way arose out of them, which they had not, so to spez, announced, that action of an arm raised in defiance ni only of the rights of man but of the law of cause ai effect, that action created ex nihilo. Fortunately the jou nalist who, staggering back from the violence of the blo; 244 | =" THE GUERMANTES WAY ad turned pale and hesitated for a moment, did not taliate. As for his friends, one of them had promptly timed away his head and was looking fixedly into the ings for some one who evidently was not there; the ‘cond pretended that a speck of dust had got into his re, and began rubbing and squeezing his eyelid with very sign of being in pain; while the third had rushed 7, exclaiming: “Good heavens, I believe the curtain’s ving up; we shan’t get into our seats.” I wanted to speak to Saint-Loup, but he was so full * his indignation with the dancer that it adhered exactly » the surface of his eyeballs; like a subcutaneous struc- ire it distended his cheeks with the result that, his ‘ternal agitation expressing itself externally in an entire pe obility, he had not even the power of relaxation, the play ” necessary to take in a word from me and to aswer it. The journalist’s friends, seeing that the in- dent was at an end, gathered round him again, still embling. But, ashamed of having deserted him, they _ absolutely determined that he should be made to Ippose that they had noticed nothing. And so they lated, one upon the speck of dust in his eye, one upon s false alarm when he had thought that the curtain as going up, the third upon the astonishing resemblance 2tween a man who had just gone by and the speaker’s other. Indeed they seemed quite to resent their friend’s ot having shared their several emotions. ‘e What, didn’t it strike you? You must be going blind.” “What I say is that you’re a pack of curs,” growled le journalist whom Saint-Loup had punished. Forgetting the poses they had adopted, to be consistent ith which they ought—but they did not think of it—to 245 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST have pretended not to understand what he meant, the fell back on certain expressions traditional in the ci cumstances: “ What’s all the excitement? Keep your h on, old chap. Don’t take the bit in your teeth.” | I had realised that morning beneath the pear blosso how illusory were the grounds upon which Robert’s lor for “ Rachel when from the Lord” was based; I wi bound now to admit how very real were the sufferin) to which that love gave rise. Gradually the feeling th had obsessed him for the last hour, without a brea began to diminish, receded into him, an unoccupied pliab, zone appeared in his eyes. I had stopped for a mome; at a corner of the Avenue Gabriel from which I hy often in the past seen Gilberte appear. I tried for a fe seconds to recall those distant impressions, and was hu rying at a “ gymnastic” pace to overtake Saint-Loup whe I saw that a gentleman, somewhat shabbily attired, aj peared to be talking to him confidentially. I concluded th} this was a personal friend of Robert; at the same time the seemed to be drawing even closer to one another; suddenl, as a meteor flashes through the sky, I saw a number | ovoid bodies assume with a giddy swiftness all the pos tions necessary for them to form, before Saint-Loup face and body, a flickering constellation. Flung out lil stones from a catapult, they seemed to me to be at tl very least seven in number. They were merely, howeve Saint-Loup’s pair of fists, multiplied by the speed wi which they were changing their places in this—to ¢ appearance ideal and decorative—arrangement. But tk elaborate display was nothing more than a pummellit! which Saint-Loup was administering, the true character which, aggressive rather than aesthetic, was first reveal 246 | THE GUERMANTES WAY me by the aspect of the shabbily dressed gentleman who peared to be losing at once his self-possession, his lower /w and a quantity of blood. He gave fictitious explana- fos to the people who came up to question him, turned s head and, seeing that Saint-Loup had made off and ‘as hastening to rejoin me, stood gazing after him with h offended, crushed, but by no means furious expression 1 his face. Saint-Loup, on the other hand, was furious, though he himself had received no blow, and his eyes ere still blazing with anger when he reached me. The ‘cident was in no way bennected (as I had supposed) ith the assault in the theatre. It was an impassioned iterer who, seeing the fine looking young soldier that aint-Loup was, had made overtures to him. My friend ould not get over the audacity of this “clique” who ‘) longer even waited for the shades of night to cover teir operations, and spoke of the suggestion that had een made to him with the same indignation as the ewspapers use in reporting an armed assault and rob- ery, in broad daylight, in the centre of Paris. And yet | te recipient of his blow was excusable in one respect, wx the trend of the downward slope brings desire so widly to the point of enjoyment that beauty by itself pears to imply consent. Now, that Saint-Loup was ‘sautiful was beyond dispute. Castigation such as he had ist administered has this value, for men of the type that ad accosted him, that it makes them think seriously of ieir conduct, though never for long enough to enable lem to amend their ways and thus escape correction at ae hands of the law. And so, although Saint-Loup’s arm ad shot out instinctively, without any preliminary | ie all such punishments, even when they reinforce | 247 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST the law, are powerless to bring about any uniformity ir | morals. These incidents, particularly the one that was weighing most on his mind, seemed to have prompted in Rober a desire to be left alone for a while. After a moment’ silence he asked me to leave him, and to go by myseli to call on Mme. de Villeparisis. He would join me there but preferred that we should not enter the room together so that he might appear to have only just arrived ir Paris, instead of having spent half the day already with me As I had supposed before making the acquaintance 0 Mme. de Villeparisis at Balbec, there was a vast dif. ference between the world in which she lived and thai of Mme. de Guermantes. Mme. de Villeparisis was one 0 those women who, born of a famous house, entering by Marriage into another no less famous, do not for all thai enjoy any great position in the social world, and, apar from a few duchesses who are their nieces or sisters-in- law, perhaps even a crowned head or two, old family friends, see their drawing-rooms filled only by third rate people, drawn from the middle classes or from a nobility either provincial or tainted in some way, whose presence there has long since driven away all such smart an snobbish folk as are not obliged to come to the house by ties of blood or the claims of a friendship too old to be ignored. Certainly I had no difficulty after the first few minutes in understanding how Mme. de Villeparisis, at Balbec, had come to be so well informed, better than ourselves even, as to the smallest details of the tour through Spain which my father was then making with M. de Norpois. Even this, however, did not make it possible to rest content with the theory that the intimacy 248 : = THE GUERMANTES WAY of more than twenty years’ standing—between Mme. de illeparisis and the Ambassador could have been respon- ble for the lady’s loss of caste in a world where the nartest women boasted the attachment of lovers far ss respectable than him, not to mention that it was ‘obably years since he had been anything more to the [arquise than just an old friend. Had Mme. de Ville- arisis then had other adventures in days gone by? Being 1en of a more passionate temperament than now, in a im and religious old age which nevertheless owed some its mellow colouring to those ardent, vanished years, id she somehow failed, in the country neighbourhood here she had lived for so long, to avoid certain scandals aknown to the younger generation who simply took ote of their effect in the unequal and defective composi- on of a visiting list bound, otherwise, to have been nong the purest of any taint of mediocrity? That “sharp mgue” which her nephew ascribed to her, had it in ose far-off days made her enemies? Had it driven er into taking advantage of certain successes with men » as to avenge herself upon women? All this was pos- ble; nor could the exquisitely sensitive way in which— ving so delicate a shade not merely to her words but 1 her intonation—Mme. de Villeparisis spoke of modesty ‘ generosity be held to invalidate this supposition; for te people who not only speak with approval of certain ‘rtues but actually feel their charm and shew a mar- sllous comprehension of them (people in fact who will, hen they come to write their memoirs, present a worthy cture of those virtues) are often sprung from but not ‘tually part of the silent, simple, artless generation which ractised them. That generation is reflected in them but 249 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST is not continued. Instead of the character which it pos sessed we find a sensibility, an intelligence which are ne conducive to action. And whether or not there had bee in the life of Mme. de Villeparisis any of those scandal which (if there had) the lustre of her name would hay blotted out, it was this intellect, resembling rather the of a writer of the second order than that of a woman ¢ position, that was undoubtedly the cause of her soci degradation. | It is true that they were not specially elevating, th qualities, such as balance and restraint, which Mme, ¢ Villeparisis chiefly extolled; but to speak of restraint 1 a manner that shall be entirely adequate, the word “r straint”? is not enough, we require some of the qual ties of authorship which presuppose a quite unrestraine exaltation; I had remarked at Balbec that the genn of certain great artists was completely unintelligible 1 Mme. de Villeparisis; and that all she could do was 1 make delicate fun of them and to express her incompri hension in a graceful and witty form. But this wit ar grace, at the point to which she carried them, becam themselves—on another plane, and even although the were employed to belittle the noblest masterpieces—try artistic qualities. Now the effect of such qualities on ar social position is a morbid activity of the kind whi¢ doctors call elective, and so disintegrating that the mo firmly established pillars of society are hard put to it? hold out for any length of time. What artists call intelle! seems pure presumption to the fashionable world whi unable to place itself at the sole point of view from whic they, the artists, look at and judge things, incapable ¢ understanding the particular attraction to which thé 250 | THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘eld when they choose an expression or start a friendship, el in their company an exhaustion, an irritation, from hich antipathy very shortly springs. And yet in her mversation, and the same may be said of the Memoirs hich she afterwards published, Mme. de Villeparisis newed nothing but a sort of grace that was eminently ycial. Having passed by great works without mastering, metimes without even noticing them, she had preserved om the period in which she had lived and which, more- ver, she described with great aptness and charm, little iore than the most frivolous of the gifts that they had ad to offer her. But a narrative of this sort, even when treats exclusively of subjects that are not intellectual, still a work of the intellect, and to give in a book or in onversation, which is almost the same thing, a deliberate mpression of frivolity, a serious touch is required which (purely frivolous person would be incapable of supplying. aa certain book of reminiscences written by a woman ad regarded as a masterpiece, the phrase that people uote as a model of airy grace has always made me spect that, in order to arrive at such a pitch of light- less, the author must originally have had a rather stodgy ducation, a boring culture, and that as a girl she probably peared to her friends an insufferable prig. And between ertain literary qualities and social failure the connexion ' $0 inevitable that when we open Mme. de Villeparisis’s femoirs to-day, on any page a fitting epithet, a sequence = metaphors will suffice to enable the reader to reconstruct ae deep but icy bow which must have been bestowed on jae old Marquise on the staircases of the Embassies by i) snob like Mme. Leroi, who perhaps may have left a fatd on her when she went to call on the Guermantes, 251 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST but never set foot in her house for fear of losing cast among all the doctors’ or solicitors’ wives whom sk would find there. A bluestocking Mme. de Villeparisis ha perhaps been in her earliest youth, and, intoxicated wit the ferment of her own knowledge, had perhaps faile to realise the importance of not applying to people i society, less intelligent and less educated than _hersel those cutting strokes which the injured party neve forgets. | Moreover, talent is not a separate appendage whid one artificially attaches to those qualities which make fi social success, in order to create from the whole whi people in society call a “complete woman”, It is th living product of a certain moral complexion, from whic as a rule many moral qualities are lacking and in whi¢ there predominates a sensibility of which other manifest) tions such as we do not notice in a book may make then selves quite distinctly felt in the course of a life, certai curiosities for instance, certain whims, the desire to te this place or that for one’s own amusement and ne with a view to the extension, the maintenance or eve the mere exercise of one’s social relations. I had see at Balbec Mme. de Villeparisis hemmed in by a bod: guard of her own servants without even a glance, as s] passed, at the people sitting in the hall of the hote But I had had a presentiment that this abstention wi due not to indifference, and it seemed that she had m always confined herself to it. She would get a sudde craze to know some one or other because she had se¢ him and thought him good-looking, or merely becaw she had been told that he was amusing, or because ]: had struck her as different from the people she kner 252 i | THE GUERMANTES WAY tho at this period, when she had not yet begun to bpreciate them because she imagined that they would aver fail her, belonged, all of them, to the purest cream ’ the Faubourg Saint-Germain. To the bohemian, the uumble middle-class gentleman whom she had marked it with her favour she was obliged to address invitations ye importance of which he was unable to appreciate, jith an insistence which began gradually to depreciate sr in the eyes of the snobs who were in the habit of stimating the smartness of a house by the people whom is mistress excluded rather than by those whom she en- srtained. Certainly, if at a given moment in her youth Ime. de Villeparisis, surfeited with the satisfaction of elonging to the fine flower of the aristocracy, had found / sort of amusement in scandalising the people among thom she lived, and in deliberately impairing her own osition in society, she had begun to attach its full im- ‘ortance to that position once it was definitely lost. She ad wished to shew the Duchesses that she was better aan they, by saying and doing all the things that they ared not say or do. But now that they all, save such 's were closely related to her, had ceased to call, she alt herself diminished, and sought once more to reign, fut with another sceptre than that of wit. She would lave liked to attract to her house all those women whom he had taken such pains to drive away. How many romen’s lives, lives of which little enough is known (for ve all live in different worlds according to our ages, and ae discretion of their elders prevents the young from arming any clear idea of the past and so completing the ycle), have been divided in this way into contrasted eriods, the last being entirely devoted to the reconquest 253 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST cf what in the second has been so light-heartedly flun/ on the wind. Flung on the wind in what way? The youn| people are ail the less capable of imagining it, since the! see before them an elderly and respectable Marquise d| Villeparisis and have no idea that the grave diarist © the present day, so dignified beneath her pile of snow’ hair, can ever have been a gay midnight-reveller who wa| perhaps the delight in those days, devoured the fortune perhaps of men now sleeping in their graves; that sh’ should also have set to work, with a persevering an natural industry, to destroy the position which she omg to her high birth does not in the least imply that eve} at that remote period Mme. de Villeparisis did not attac) great importance to her position. In the same way th web of isolation, of inactivity in which a neurastheni lives may be woven by him from morning to night withou therefore seeming endurable, and while he is hastenin’ to add another mesh to the net which holds him captive it is possible that he is dreaming only of dancing, spor and travel. We are at work every moment upon givin its form to our life, but we do so by copying uninten! tionally, like the example in a book, the features of thi person that we are and not of him who we should lik to be. The disdainful bow of Mme. Leroi might to som extent be expressive of the true nature of Mme. de Ville parisis; it in no way corresponded to her ambition. was—to use an expression beloved of Mme. Swann— “cutting ” the Marquise, the latter could seek consolation in remembering how Queen Marie-Amélie had once sait to her: “ You are just like a daughter to me.” But suc marks of royal friendship, secret and unknown to the 254 THE GUERMANTES WAY Bd, existed for the Marquise alone, dusty as the diploma jf an old Conservatoire medallist. The only true social jdvantages are those that create life, that can disappear without the person who has benefited by them needing 0 try to keep them or to make them public, because on he same day a hundred others will take their place. {nd for all that she could remember the Queen’s using those words to her, she would nevertheless have bartered hem gladly for the permanent faculty of being asked verywhere which Mme. Leroi possessed, as in a restau- ‘ant a great but unknown artist whose genius is written either in the lines of his bashful face nor in the anti- uated cut of his threadbare coat, would willingly be ven the young stock-jobber, of the lowest grade of society, who is sitting with a couple of actresses at a neighbouring able to which in an obsequious and incessant chain come (urrying manager, head waiter, pages and even the scul- uons who file out of the kitchen to salute him, as in the airy-tales, while the wine waiter advances, dust-covered ike his bottles, limping and dazed, as if on his way up rom the cellar he had twisted his foot before emerging ato the light of day. , It must be remarked, however, that in Mme. de Ville- arisis’s drawing-room the absence of Mme. Leroi, if it stressed the lady of the house, passed unperceived by he majority of her guests. They were entirely ignorant f the peculiar position which Mme. Leroi occupied, a sition known only to the fashionable world, and never oubted that Mme. de Villeparisis’s receptions were, as he readers of her Memoirs to-day are convinced that they dust have been, the most brilliant in Paris. On the occasion of this first call which, after leaving 255 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST Saint-Loup, I went to pay on Mme. de Villeparisis, fol: lowing the advice given by M. de Norpois to my father} I found her in her drawing-room hung, with yellow silk) against which the sofas and the admirable armchair; upholstered in Beauvais tapestry stood out with the almost purple redness of ripe raspberries. Side by side with the Guermantes and Villeparisis portraits one saw those—gifts from the sitters themselves—of Queen Ma. rie-Amélie, the Queen of the Belgians, the Prince de Joinville and the Empress of Austria. Mme. de Ville’ parisis herself, capped with an old-fashioned bonnet 0 black lace (which she preserved with the same instine tive sense of local or historical colour as a Breton inn} keeper who, however Parisian his customers may hain become, feels it more in keeping to make his maids dresi in coifs and wide sleeves), was seated at a little desk or which in front of her, as well as her brushes, her palett and an unfinished flower-piece in water-colours, were ar} ranged in glasses, in saucers, in cups, moss-roses, zinnias maidenhair ferns, which on account of the sudden influ; of callers she had just left off painting, and which had th effect of being piled on a florist’s counter in some eight eenth-century mezzotint. In this drawing-room, whicl had been slightly heated on purpose because the Mar quise had caught cold on the journey from her house i) the country, there were already when I arrived a libra! rian with whom Mme. de Villeparisis had spent the morn ing in selecting the autograph letters to herself from various historical personages which were to figure in fac simile as documentary evidence in the Memoirs whiel she was preparing for the press, and a historian, solemi and tongue-tied, who hearing that she had inherited am 256 —. THE GUERMANTES WAY ill possessed a portrait of the Duchesse de Montmorency, ad come to ask her permission to reproduce it as a plate , his work on the Fronde; a party strengthened presently y the addition of my old friend Bloch, now a rising famatist, upon whom she counted to secure the gratui- gus services of actors and actresses at her next series { afternoon parties. It was true that the social kaleido- eee was in the act of turning and that the Dreyfus ise was shortly to hurl the Jews down to the lowest ang of the social ladder. But, for one thing, the anti- Jreyfus cyclone might rage as it would, it is not in the tst hour of a storm that the waves are highest. In the ycond place, Mme. de Villeparisis, leaving a whole section her family to fulminate against the Jews, had hitherto 2pt herself entirely aloof from the Case and never gave )a thought. Lastly, a young man like Bloch, whom no ae knew, might pass unperceived, whereas leading Jews, ppresentatives of their party, were already threatened. ¢ had his chin pointed now by a goat-beard, wore suble glasses and a long frock coat, and carried a glove xe a roll of papyrus in his hand. The Rumanians, the gyptians, the Turks may hate the Jews. But in a tench drawing-room the differences between those sop! es are not so apparent, and an Israelite making ‘Sentry as though he were emerging from the heart of e desert, his body crouching like a hyaena’s, his neck ust obliquely forward, spreading himself in profound Salaams”, completely satisfies a certain taste for the ental. ony it is essential that the Jew should not be ‘tually “in” society, otherwise he will readily assume € aspect of a lord and his manners become so Gallicised at on his face a rebellious nose, growing like a nastur- F 257 Q REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST tium in any but the right direction, will make one thin] rather of Mascarille’s nose than of Solomon’s. But Bloch! not having been rendered supple by the gymnastics } the Faubourg, nor ennobled by a crossing with Englani or Spain, remained for a lover of the exotic as strang) and savoury a spectacle, in spite of his European costume as one of Decamps’s Jews. Marvellous racial power whic from the dawn of time thrusts to the surface, even 1| modern Paris, on the stage of our theatres, behind th pigeonholes of our public offices, at a funeral, in th) street, a solid phalanx, setting their mark upon ov modern ways of hairdressing, absorbing, making us forge) disciplining the frock coat which on them remains n¢ at all unlike the garment in which Assyrian scribes ai| depicted in ceremonial attire on the frieze of a monumer, at Susa before the gates of the Palace of Darius. (Late in the afternoon Bloch might have imagined that it we out of anti-semitic malice that M. de Charlus inquire) whether his first name was Jewish, whereas it was simp] from aesthetic interest’ and love of local colour.) But, 1 revert for a moment, when we speak of racial persistent we do not accurately convey the impression we recet\ from Jews, Greeks, Persians, all those peoples whom | is better to leave with their differences. We know fro} classical paintings the faces of the ancient Greeks, ¥j have seen Assyrians on the walls of a palace at Sus And so we feel, on encountering in a Paris drawinj room Orientals belonging to one or other group, th) we are in the presence of creatures whom the forces | necromancy must have called to life. We knew hither! only a superficial image; behold it has gained depth, | extends into three dimensions, it moves. The young Gre 258 ‘| I \ THE GUERMANTES WAY dy, daughter of a rich banker and the latest favourite - society, looks exactly like one of those dancers who | the chorus of a ballet at once historical and aesthetic mbolise in flesh and blood the art of Hellas; and yet | the theatre the setting makes these images somehow ite; the spectacle, on the other hand, to which the entry to a drawing-room of a Turkish lady or a Jewish gentle- an admits us, by animating their features makes them ypear stranger still, as if they really were creatures yoked by the effort of a medium. It is the soul (or ither the pigmy thing to which—up tothe present, at y rate—the soul is reduced in this sort of materialisa- mm), it is the soul of which we have caught glimpses therto in museums alone, the soul of the ancient Greeks, ‘the ancient Hebrews, torn from a life at once insig- icant and transcendental, which seems to be enacting fore our eyes this disconcerting pantomime. In the ung Greek lady who is leaving the room what we seek vain to embrace is the figure admired long ago on the le of a vase. I felt that if I had in the light of Mme. de lleparisis’s drawing-room taken photographs of Bloch, 2y would have furnished of Israel the same image—so sturbing because it does not appear to emanate from Manity, so deceiving because all the same it is so angely like humanity—which we find in spirit photo- iphs. There is nothing, to speak more generally, not 2m the insignificance of the remarks made by the dple among whom we spend our lives, that does not give a sense of the supernatural, in our every-day world ere even a man of genius from whom we expect, chered as though around a turning table, to learn the ret of the Infinite utters only these words—the same 259 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST that had just issued from the lips of Bloch: “Take ca} of my top hat.” “Oh, Ministers, my dear sir,” Mme. de Villeparis| was saying, addressing herself specially to my friend, ar picking up the thread of a conversation which had be¢ broken by my arrival: “ nobody ever wanted to see thet I was only a child at the time, but I can remember so wi the King begging my grandfather to invite M. Decaz to a rout at which my father was to dance with t] Duchesse de Berry. ‘It will give me pleasure, Flo mond,’ said the King. My grandfather, who was a litt) deaf, thought he had said M. de Castries, which seem a perfectly natural thing to ask. When he understoi that it was M. Decazes, he was furious at first, b he gave in, and wrote a note the same evening to }) Decazes, begging him to pay my grandfather the comp} ment and give him the honour of his presence at the bl which he was giving the following week. For we we polite, sir, in those days, and no hostess would ha; dreamed of simply sending her card and writing on| ‘Tea’ or ‘Dancing’ or ‘Music’. But if we understol politeness we were not incapable of impertinence eit] M. Decazes accepted, but the day before the ball it w given out that my grandfather felt indisposed and hl cancelled his invitations. He had obeyed the King, Et he had not had M. Decazes at his ball. ... Yes I remember M. Molé very well, he was a clever man he shewed that in his reception of M. de Vigny at t Academy—but he was very pompous, and I can see h now coming downstairs to dinner in his own house wi his tall hat in his hand.” “Ah! that is typically suggestive of what must het 260 I" fF THE GUERMANTES WAY een a pretty perniciously philistine epoch, for it was no oubt a universal habit to carry one’s hat in one’s hand 1 one’s own house,” observed Bloch, anxious to make ne most of so rare an opportunity of learning from an erritness details of the aristocratic life of another day, thile the librarian, who was a sort of intermittent secre- ary to the Marquise, gazed at her tenderly as though e were saying to the rest of us: “There, you see what he’s like, she knows everything, she has met everybody, ou can ask her anything you like, she’s quite amazing.” “Oh, dear, no,” replied Mme. de Villeparisis, drawing earer to her as she spoke the glass containing the maiden- air which presently she would begin again to paint, “it vas a habit M. Molé had; that was all. I never saw my ather carry his hat in the house, except of course when ae King came, because the King being at home wherever eis the master of the house is only a visitor then in his wn drawing-room.” ' Aristotle tells us in the second chapter of . . .” ven-~ ‘red M. Pierre, the historian of the Reace) but so midly that no one paid any attention. Having been affering for some weeks from a nervous insomnia which asisted every attempt at treatment, he had given up ding to bed, and, half-dead with exhaustion, went out aly Preseyer his work made it imperative. Incapable of *peating at all often these expeditions which, simple aough for. other people, cost him as much effort as if, ) make them, he was obliged to come down from the toon, he was surprised to be brought up so frequently gainst the fact that other people’s lives were not or- anised on a constant and permanent basis so as to fur. ish the maximum utility to the sudden outbursts of hig 261 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST own. He sometimes found the doors shut of a libran which he had reached only after setting himself artifij cially on his feet and in a frock coat like some automato}) in a story by Mr. Wells. Fortunately he had found Mme de Villeparisis at home and was going to be shewn ty portrait. Meanwhile he was cut short by Bloch. “ Indeed,” th latter remarked, referring to what Mme. de Villeparisi had said as to the Boe for royal visits. “ Do yo know, I never knew that,” as though it were strange tha he should not have known it always. | “Talking of that sort of visit, you heard the stuf joke my nephew Basin played on me yesterday morning?’ Mme. de Villeparisis asked the librarian. “ He told m| people, instead of announcing him, to say that it wa the Queen of Sweden who had called to see me.” | “What! He made them tell you just like that! I say he must have a nerve,” exclaimed Bloch with a shout laughter, while the historian smiled with a stately timidity “I was quite surprised, because I had only been bac’ from the country a few days; I had specially arrange¢ just to be left in peace for a little, that no one was to bi told that I was in Paris, and I asked myself how th’ Queen of Sweden could have heard so soon,” went o| Mme. de Villeparisis, leaving her guests amazed to fin| that a visit from the Queen of Sweden was in itself no [ ing out of the common to their hostess. | Farlier in the day Mme. de Villeparisis might hay been collaborating with the librarian in arranging th illustrations to her Memoirs; now she was, quite uncor, sciously, trying their effect on an average public typi of that from which she would eventually have to enlir 262 | THE GUERMANTES WAY r readers. Hers might be different in many ways from really fashionable drawing-room in which you would ve been struck by the absence of a number of middle iss ladies to whom Mme. de Villeparisis was “at me”, and would have noticed instead such brilliant aders of fashion as Mme. Leroi had in course of time anaged to secure, but this distinction is not perceptible in r Memoirs, from which certain unimportant friendships | the author have disappeared because there is never any casion to refer to them; while the absence of those who d not come to see her leaves no gap because, in the scessarily restricted space at the author’s disposal, only few persons can appear, and if these persons are royal srsonages, historic personalities, then the utmost im- ‘ession of distinction which any volume of memoirs can mvey to the public is achieved. In the opinion of Mme. eroi, Mme. de Villeparisis’s parties were third-rate; and sme. de Villeparisis felt the sting of Mme. Leroi’s opinion. ut hardly anyone to-day remembers who Mme. Leroi as, her opinions have vanished into thin air, and it is te drawing-room of Mme. de Villeparisis, frequented as was by the Queen of Sweden, and as it had been by ie Duc d’Aumale, the Duc de Broglie, Thiers, Mon- ilembert, Mer. Dupanloup, which will be looked upon ; one of the most brilliant of the nineteenth century by lat posterity which has not changed since the days of fomer and Pindar, and for which the enviable things te exalted birth, royal or quasi-royal, and the friendship f kings, the leaders of the people and other eminent men. | Now of all this Mme. de Villeparisis had her share in ae people who still came to her house and in the mem- ries—sometimes slightly “touched up”—by means of 263 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | which she extended her social activity into the past. Ar then there was M. de Norpois who, while unable ; restore his friend to any substantial position in societ did indeed bring to her house such foreign or Frenc statesmen as might have need of his services and kne that the only effective method of securing them was pay court to Mme. de Villeparisis. Possibly Mme. Ler: also knew these European celebrities. But, as a wel mannered woman who avoids anything that suggests tl, bluestocking, she would as little have thought of mer tioning the Eastern question to her Prime Ministers ; of discussing the nature of love with her novelists an philosophers. “ Love?” she had once replied to a pushin lady who had asked her: “ What are your views on love?) —“ Love? I make it, constantly, but I never talk abou it.” When she had any of these literary or political lior in her house she contented herself, as did the Duchess de Guermantes, with setting them down to play poke They often preferred this to the serious conversations 0 general ideas in which Mme. de Villeparisis forced ther. to engage. But these conversations, ridiculous as in th social sense they may have been, have furnished th Memoirs of Mme. de Villeparisis with those admirabl passages, those dissertations on politics which read s well in volumes of autobiography, as they do in Corneille tragedies. Furthermore, the parties of the Villeparisis ¢ this world are alone destined to be handed down t posterity, because the Lerois of this world cannot writ and, if they could, would not have the time. And if th literary bent of the Villeparisis is the cause of the Lerok disdain, the disdain of the Lerois does, in its turn, ; singular service to the literary bent of the Villeparisis b 264 ——- THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘ffording the bluestockings that leisure which the career f letters requires. God, Whose Will it is that there should ‘ a few books in the world well written, breathes with hat purpose such disdain into the hearts of the Lerois, for Te knows that if these should invite the Villeparisis to inner the latter would at once rise from their writing Jables and order their carriages to be round at eight. * Presently there came into the room, with slow and ‘olemn step, an old lady of tall stature who, beneath the Jaised brim of her straw hat, revealed a monumental pile if snowy hair in the style of Marie-Antoinette. I did not then know that she was one of three women who were ‘till to be seen in Parisian society and who, like Mme. de Villeparisis, while all of the noblest birth, had been re- ‘luced, for reasons which were now lost in the night of ‘ime and could have been told us only by some old gallant ‘of their period, to entertaining only certain of the dregs if society who were not sought after elsewhere. Each of these ladies had her own “ Duchesse de Guermantes ” the brilliant niece who came regularly to pay her alae jut none of them could have succeeded in attracting to 4er house the “ Duchesse de Guermantes” of either of the others. Mme. de Villeparisis was on the best of terms vith these three ladies, but she did not like them. Perhaps the similarity between their social position and her own ‘rave her an impression of them which was not pleasing. Besides, soured bluestockings as they were, seeking by the fAumber and frequency of the drawing-room comedies vhich they arranged in their houses to give themselves he illusion of a regular salon, there had grown up among ‘hem a rivalry which the decay of Ae fortune in the tourse of a somewhat tempestuous existence reduced for : 265 | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | each of them, when it was a question of securing the kir assistance of a professional actor or actress, into a sort | struggle for life. Furthermore, the lady with the Mari Antoinette hair, whenever she set eyes on Mme. de Vill! parisis, could not help being reminded of the fact th, the Duchesse de Guermantes did not come to her Friday Her consolation was that at these same Fridays she cou always count on having, blood being thicker than wate the Princesse de Poix, who was her own personal Gue mantes, and who never went near Mme. de Villeparisi albeit Mme. de Poix was an intimate friend of tl Duchess. Nevertheless from the mansion on the Quai Malaqua to the drawing-rooms of the Rue de Tournon, the Ri de la Chaise and the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, a bond ; compelling as it was hateful united the three falle goddesses, as to whom I would fain have learned t searching in some dictionary of social mythology throug what gallant adventure, what sacrilegious presumptio. they had incurred their punishment. Their common bri lance of origin, the common decay of their present sta’ entered largely, no doubt, into the necessity which con! pelled them, while hating one another, to frequent or another’s society. Besides, each of them found in th others a convenient way of being polite to her own guest How should these fail to suppose that they had scale the most inaccessible peak of the Faubourg when the were introduced to a lady with a string of titles whos sister was married to a Duc de Sagan or a Prince d Ligne? Especially as there was infinitely more in th newspapers about these sham salons than about th genuine ones. Indeed these old ladies’ “ men about town 266 — —-— <> —-- “ Ou THE GUERMANTES WAY ephews—and Saint-Loup the foremost of them—when isked by a friend to introduce him to people, would inswer at once “I will take you to see my aunt Ville- ‘arisis,” (or whichever it was) “you meet interesting eople there.” They knew very well that this would ean less trouble for themselves than trying to get the aid friends invited by the smart nieces or sisters-in-law if these ladies. Certain very old men, and young women tho had heard it from those men, told me that if these idies were no longer received in society it was because f the extraordinary irregularity of their conduct, which, then I objected that irregular conduct was not neces- arily a barrier to social success, was represented to me s having gone far beyond eine that we know to-day. he misconduct of these solemn dames who held them- elves so erect assumed on the lips of those who hinted tit something that I was incapable of imagining, pro- ortionate to the magnitude of prehistoric days, to the ‘ge of the mammoth. In a word, these three Parcae with heir white or blue or red locks had spun the fatal threads f an incalculable number of gentlemen. I felt that the eople of to-day exaggerated the vices of those fabulous mes, like the Greeks who created Icarus, Theseus, Teracles out of men who had been but little different com those who long afterwards deified them. But one ‘oes not tabulate the sum of a person’s vices until he has Imost ceased to be in a fit state to practise them, when rom the magnitude of his social punishment, which is Aen nearing the completion of its term and which alone ne can estimate, one measures, one imagines, one exag- erates that of the crime that has Been ee a aat gallery of symbolical figures which is “ society ”, the 267 | | it —$—$ $$ REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST really light women, the true Messalinas, invariably present the solemn aspect of a lady of at least seventy, with an air of lofty distinction, who entertains everyone she can but not everyone she would like to have, to whose house women will never consent to go whose own conduct falls in any way short of perfection, to whom the Pope reg- ularly sends his Golden Rose, and who as often as not has written—on the early days of Lamartine—an essay that has been crowned by the French Academy. “ How d’ye do, Alix?” Mme. de Villeparisis greeted the Marie- Antoinette lady, which lady cast a searching glance round the assembly to see whether there was not in this drawing- room any item that might be a valuable addition to her own, in which case she would have to discover it for her- self, for Mme. de Villeparisis, she was sure, would be spiteful enough to try to keep it from her. Thus Mme. de Villeparisis took good care not to introduce Bloch to the old lady for fear of his being asked to produce the same play that he was arranging for her in the drawing-room! of the Quai Malaquais. Besides it was only tit for taty For, the evening before, the old lady had had Mme. Ristori, who had recited, and had taken care that Mine, de Villeparisis, from whom she had filched the Italian artist, should not hear of this function until it was over. So that she should not read it first in the newspapers and feel annoyed, the old lady had come in person to tell her about it, shewing no sense of guilt. Mme. de Ville- parisis, considering that an introduction of myself was not likely to have the same awkward results as that of Bloch, made me known to the Marie-Antoinette of the Quai Malaquais. The latter, who sought, by making the fewest possible movements, to preserve in her old age those 268 | oe oe THE GUERMANTES WAY ines, as of a Coysevox goddess, which had years ago charmed the young men of fashion and which spurious soets still celebrated in rhymed charades—and had ac- quired the habit of a lofty and compensating stiffness yommon to all those whom a personal degradation obliges xo be continually making advances—just perceptibly lowered her head with a frigid majesty, and, turning the other way, took no more notice of me than if I had not existed. By this crafty attitude she seemed to be assur- ing Mme. de Villeparisis: “You see, I’m nowhere near him; please understand that I’m not interested—in any sense of the word, you old cat—in little boys.” But when, twenty minutes later, she left the room, taking advantage ‘of the general conversation, she slipped into my ear an invitation to come to her box the following Friday with another of the three, whose high-sounding pe wea: had been born a Choiseul, moreover—had a prodigious effect ‘on me. ' “JT understand, sir, that you are thinkin’ of writin’ ‘somethin’ about Mme. la Duchesse de Montmorency,” said Mme. de Villeparisis to the historian of the Fronde in that grudging tone which she allowed, quite uncon- 'sciously, to spoil the effect of her great and genuine kind- mess, a tone due to the shrivelling crossness, the sense ‘of grievance that is a physiological accompaniment of ‘age, as well as to the affectation of imitating the almost Tustic speech of the old nobility: “ I’m goin’ to let you see ‘her portrait, the original of the copy they have in the ‘Louvre.” She rose, laying down her brushes beside the flowers, and the little apron which then came into sight at her ‘waist, and which she wore so as not to stain her dress with 269 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST paints, added still further to the impression of an old peasant given by her bonnet and her big spectacles, and offered a sharp contrast to the luxury of her appointments, the butler who had brought in the tea and cakes, th liveried footman for whom she now rang to light up the. portrait of the Duchesse de Montmorency, Abbess of one of the most famous Chapters in the East of France, Everyone had risen. “What is rather amusin’,” said our hostess, “is that in these Chapters where our great-aunts, were so often made Abbesses, the daughters of the King of France would not have been admitted. They were very close corporations.” “Not admit the King’s daughters,” cried Bloch in amazement, “ why ever not?” “ Why, be- cause the House of France had not enough quarterin’s after that low marriage.” Bloch’s bewilderment increased, “A low marriage? The House of France? When was. that?” “Why, when they married into the Medicis,” replied Mme. de Villeparisis in the most natural manner, “It’s a fine picture, ain’t it, and in a perfect state of preservation,” she added. | “My dear,” put in the Marie-Antoinette lady, “ surely you remember that when I brought Liszt to see you he. said that it was this one that was the copy.” | “TI should bow to any opinion of Liszt on music, but not on painting. Besides, he was quite off his head then, and I don’t remember his ever saying anything of the sort. But it wasn’t you that brought him here. I had met him any number of times at dinner at Princess Say Wittgenstein’s.” Alix’s shot had missed fire; she stood silent, erect anf] motionless. Plastered with layers of powder, her face had the appearance of a face of stone. And, as the profile 270 —_— + —- THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘as noble, she seemed, on a triangular and moss-grown edestal hidden by her cape, the time-worn stucco goddess fa park. “Ah, I see another fine portrait,” began the historian. “The door opened and the Duchesse de Guermantes tered the room. “Well, how are you?” Mme. de Villeparisis greeted ‘er without moving her head, taking from her apron- ocket a hand which she held out to the newcomer; and hen ceasing at once to take any notice of her niece, in der to return to the historian: “That is the portrait of he Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld....” _ A young servant with a bold manner and a charming ace (but so finely chiselled, to ensure its perfection, that he nose was a little red and the rest of the skin slightly lushed as though they were still smarting from the recent ind sculptural incision) came in bearing a card on a ‘alver. ' “Tt is that gentleman who has been several times to see Mme. la Marquise.” ' “Did you tell him I was at home? ” ' “He heard the voices.” _ “Oh, very well then, shew him in. It’s a man who was ‘troduced to me,” she explained. “He told me he was very anxious to come to the house. I certainly never said he might. But here he’s taken the trouble to vall five times now; it doesn’t do to hurt people’s feelings. Sir,” she went on to me, “and you, Sir,” to the historian of the Fronde, “let me introduce my niece, the Duchesse de Guermantes.” _ The historian made a low bow, as I did also, and since he seemed to suppose that some friendly remark ought ry | | ) | | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | to follow this salute, his eyes brightened and he wa! preparing to open his mouth when he was once mor frozen by the sight of Mme. de Guermantes who 3 taken advantage of the independence of her torso ti throw it forward with an exaggerated politeness anc bring it neatly back to a position of rest without letting face or eyes appear to have noticed that anyone wat standing before them; after breathing a gentle sigh shi contented herself with manifesting the nullity of thi impression that had been made on her by the sight of the historian and myself by performing certain move ments of her nostrils with a precision that testified to the absolute inertia of her unoccupied attention. i The importunate visitor entered the room, making straight for Mme de Villeparisis with an ingenuous, fervent air: it was Legrandin. | “Thank you so very much for letting me come and see you,” he began, laying stress on the word “very ”, , gan, lay “Tt is a pleasure of a quality altogether rare and subtle that you confer on an old solitary; I assure you that its re- Percussion: 47) He stopped short on catching sight of me. “I was just shewing this gentleman a fine portrait of the Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld, the wife of the author of the Maxims; it’s a family picture.” | Mme. de Guermantes meanwhile had greeted Alix, with apologies for not having been able, that year as in ei previous year, to go and see her. “I hear all about you | from Madeleine,” she added. | . “She was at luncheon with me to-day,” said the Mar- quise of the Quai Malaquais, with the Satisfying reflexion that Mme. de Villeparisis could never say that. i) Meanwhile I had been talking to Bloch, and fearing, | 272 THE GUERMANTES WAY rom what I had been told of his father’s change of ttitude towards him, that he might be envying my life, said to him that his must be the happier of the two. My remark was prompted solely by my desire to be riendly. But such friendliness readily convinces those vyho cherish a high opinion of themselves of their own sood fortune, or gives them a desire to convince other eople. “ Yes, I do lead a delightful existence,” Bloch issured me with a beatified smile. “I have three great riends; I do not wish for one more; an adorable mistress; am infinitely happy. Rare is the mortal to whom Father Zeus accords so much felicity.” I fancy that he was anx- ous principally to extol himself and to make me envious. erhaps too there was some desire to shew originality n his optimism. It was evident that he did not wish 0 reply in the commonplace phraseology that everybody ases: “Oh, it was nothing, really,” and so forth, when, 0 my question: “Was it a good show?” put with regard 0 an afternoon dance at his house to which I had been wrevented from going, he replied in a level, careless tone, is if the dance had been given by some one else: “ Why, res, it was quite a good show, couldn’t have been better. t was really charming!” “What you have just told us interests me enormously,” aid Legrandin to Mme. de Villeparisis, “ for I was saying .o myself only the other day that you shewed a marked ikeness to him in the clear-cut turn of your speech, in i quality which I will venture to describe by two con- ‘radictory terms, monumental rapidity and immortal in- ‘tantaneousness. I should have liked this afternoon to lake down all the things you say; but I shall remember them. They are, in a phrase which comes, I think, from 1 273 R | | 7 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | Joubert, friends of the memory. You have never reac Joubert? Oh! he would have admired you so! I will take the liberty this evening of sending you a set of him, it i¢ a privilege to make you a present of his mind. He had. not your strength. But he had a great deal of charm all the same.” | : I would have gone up to Legrandin at once and spoker to him, but he kept as far away from me as he could, ne doubt in the hope that I might not overhear the stream of flattery which, with a remarkable felicity of expression he kept pouring out, whatever the topic, to Mme. de Villeparisis. | She shrugged her shoulders, smiling, as though he hac been trying to make fun of her, and turned to the historian. i “And this is the famous Marie de Rohan, Duchesse de Chevreuse, who was married first of all to M. de Luynes,” | “My dear, speaking of Mme. de Luynes reminds me of Yolande; she came to me yesterday evening, and if ] had known that you weren’t engaged I’ld have sent rounc¢ to ask you to come. Mme. Ristori turned up quite by chance, and recited some poems by Queen Carmen Sylve in the author’s presence. It was too beautiful! ” i “What treachery!” thought Mme. de Villeparisis. “ Oi course that was what she was whispering about the other day to Mme. de Beaulaincourt and Mme. de Chaponay, I had no engagement,” she replied, “ but I should not have come. I heard Ristori in her great days, she’s a mere wreck now. Besides I detest Carmen Sylva’s poetry. Ris- tori came here once, the Duchess of Aosta brought her, to recite a canto of the Inferno, by Dante. In that sort ol thing she’s incomparable.” 274 | THE GUERMANTES WAY ' Alix bore the blow without flinching. She remained marble. Her gaze was piercing and blank, her nose sroudly arched. But the surface of one cheek was scaling. rn faint, strange vegetation, green and pink, was invading aer chin. Perhaps another winter would level her with the dust. - “Now, sir, if you are fond of painting, look at the por- ‘rait of Mme. de Montmorency,” Mme. de Villeparisis said to Legrandin, to stop the flow of compliments which vas beginning again. | Seizing her opportunity, while his back was turned, Mme. de Guermantes pointed to him, with an ironical, questioning look at her aunt. _ “Tt’s M. Legrandin,” murmured Mme. de Villeparisis, *he has a sister called Mme. de Cambremer, not that that sonveys any more to you than it does to me.” | “What! Oh, but I know her quite well!” exclaimed Mme. de Guermantes, and put her hand over her lips. “That is to say, I don’t know her, but for some reason or other Basin, who meets the husband heaven knows where, took it into his head to tell the wretched woman he might call on me. And she did. I can’t tell you what t was like. She informed me that she had been to Lon- don, and gave me a complete catalogue of all the things nthe British Museum. And this very day, the moment I ‘eave your house, I’m going, just as you see me now, to lrop a card on the monster. And don’t for a moment sup- pose that it’s an easy thing to do. On the pretence that the’s dying of some disease she’s always at home, it doesn’t matter whether you arrive at seven at night or dine in the morning, she’s ready for you with a dish of itrawberry tarts. 275 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “No, but seriously, you know, she is a monstrosity, | Mme. de Guermantes replied to a questioning glance fror| her aunt. “She’s an impossible person, she talks abou ‘plumitives’ and things like that.” “What does * plum tive’ mean?” asked Mme. de Villeparisis. “I haven the slightest idea!” cried the Duchess in mock indignatior) “T don’t want to know. I don’t speak that sort of lan guage.” And seeing that her aunt really did not knoy what a plumitive was, to give herself the satisfaction ¢ shewing that she was a scholar as well as a purist, an! to make fun of her aunt, now, after making fun of Mmé de Cambremer: “ Why, of course,” she said, with a hal: laugh which the last traces of her pretended ill humow kept in check, “everybody knows what it means; | plumitive is a writer, a person who holds a pen. But it’s | dreadful word. It’s enough to make your wisdom teet drop out. Nothing will ever make me use words like tha’ “‘ And so that’s the brother, is it? I hadn’t realized th yet. But after all it’s not inconceivable. She has the sam} doormat docility and the same mass of informati like a circulating library. She’s just as much of a flattere as he is, and just as boring. Yes, I’m beginning to see tt family likeness now quite plainly.” | “Sit down, we’re just going to take a dish of tea,” sail Mme. de Villeparisis to her niece. “ Help yourself; yo don’t want to look at the pictures of wou great-granc mothers, you know them as well as I do.” | Presently Mme. de Villeparisis sat down again at h¢ desk and went on with her painting. The rest of the part} gathered round her, and I took the opportunity to go y to Legrandin and, seeing no harm myself in his presen¢ in Mme. de Villeparisis’s drawing-room and never drean 276 ne) —e THE GUERMANTES WAY og how much my words would at once hurt him and make um believe that I had deliberately intended to hurt him, ay: “Well, sir, I am almost excused for coming to a tea- arty when I find you here too.” M. Legrandin concluded tom this speech (at least this was the opinion which he xpressed of me a few days later) that I was a thoroughly piteful little wretch who delighted only in doing mischief, “You might at least have the civility to begin by saying ow d’ye do to me,” he replied, without offering me his and and in a coarse and angry voice which I had never 4spected him of possessing, a voice which bearing no yaceable relation to what he ordinarily said did bear nother more immediate and striking relation to some- ung that he was feeling at the moment. What happens that since we are determined always to keep our feel- gs to ourselves, we have never given any thought to the ‘anner in which we should express them. And suddenly lere is within us a strange and obscene animal making 3 voice heard, the tones of which may inspire as much tror in the listener who receives the involuntary elliptical resistible communication of our defect or vice as would e sudden avowal indirectly and uncouthly proffered by - criminal who can no longer refrain from confessing a urder of which one had never imagined him to be guilty. knew, of course, that idealism, even subjective idealism d not prevent great philosophers from still having hearty petites or from presenting themselves with untiring per- verance for election to the Academy. But really Legran- o had no occasion to remind people so often that he be- aged to another planet when all his convulsive move- ents of anger or affability were governed by the desire occupy a good position on this. 277 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “Naturally, when people pester me twenty times Oo. end to go anywhere,” he went on in lower tones, “ althoug: I am perfectly free to do what I choose, still I can’t behav! like an absolute boor.” Mme. de Guermantes had sat down. Her name, accom panied as it was by her title, added to her corporeal d’ mensions the duchy which projected itself round abot her and brought the shadowy, sun-splashed coolness ¢ the woods of Guermantes into this drawing-room, to su! round the tuffet on which she was sitting. I felt surprise! only that the likeness of those woods was not more di cernible on the face of the Duchess, about which the was nothing suggestive of vegetation, and at the most tl ruddy discolouration of her cheeks—which ought rathe surely, to have been emblazoned with the name Gue mantes—was the effect, but did not furnish a picture long gallops in the open air. Later on, when she had ceas¢ to interest me, I came to know many of the Duches peculiarities, notably (to speak for the moment only | that one of which I already at this time felt the char! though without yet being able to discover what it was) h eyes, in which was held captive as in a picture the bh sky of an afternoon in France, broadly expansive, bathe in light even when no sun shone; and a voice which of would have thought, from its first hoarse sounds, to ; almost plebeian, through which there trailed, as over t steps of the church at Combray or the pastry-cook’s | the square, the rich and lazy gold of a country sun. B? on this first day I discerned nothing, the warmth of attention volatilised at once the little that I might othe wise have been able to extract from her, in which I shoul have found some indication of the name Guermantes. 278 | THE GUERMANTES WAY | | any case, I told myself that it was indeed she who was designated for all the world by the title Duchesse de ‘Guermantes: the inconceivable life which that name sig- ified, this body did indeed contain; it had just intro- duced that life into a crowd of different creatures, in this toom which enclosed it on every side and on which it oroduced so violent a reaction that I thought I could see, where the extent of that mysterious life ceased, a fringe of effervescence outline its frontiers: round the circum-— Terence of the circle traced on the carpet by the balloon of her blue peking skirt, and in the bright eyes of the ‘Duchess at the point of intersection of the preoccupations, the memories, the incomprehensible, scornful, amused and surious thoughts which filled them from within and the outside images that were reflected on their surface. Per- aps I should have been not quite so deeply stirred had I ‘net her at Mme. de Villeparisis’s at an evening party, in- itead of seeing her thus on one of the Marquise’s “ days ”, At one of those tea-parties which are for women no more than a brief halt in the course of their afternoon’s outing, when, keeping on the hats in which they have been driving ‘hrough the streets, they waft into the close atmosphere of a drawing-room the quality of the fresh air outside, and tive one a better view of Paris in the late afternoon than lo the tall, open windows through which one can hear the »owling wheels of their victorias: Mme. de Guermantes ore a boating-hat trimmed with cornflowers, and what hey recalled to me was not, among the tilled fields round “ombray where I had so often gathered those flowers, on he slope adjoining the Tansonville hedge, the suns of vygone years, it was the scent and dust of twilight as hey had been an hour ago, when Mme. de Guermantes 279 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST drove through them, in the Rue de la Paix. With a smil ing, disdainful, vague air, and a grimace on her pursec lips, with the point of her sunshade, as with the extrem tip of an antenna of her mysterious life, she was traciny circles on the carpet; then, with that indifferent attentioy which begins by eliminating every point of contact witl what one is actually studying, her gaze fastened upon eacl of us in turn; then inspected the sofas and armchairs, bu, softened this time by that human sympathy which 7 aroused by the presence, however insignificant, of a thiny one knows, a thing that is almost a person; these pieces 0 furniture were not like us, they belonged vaguely to he| world, they were bound up with the life of her aunt; the} from the Beauvais furniture her gaze was carried back t| the person sitting on it, and resumed then the same ai of perspicacity and that same disapproval which the re spect that Mme. de Guermantes felt for her aunt woul have prevented her from expressing in words, but whic; she would obviously have felt had she discovered on th chairs, instead of our presence, that of a spot of greas| or a layer of dust. | That admirable writer G entered the room; had come to pay a call on Mme. de Villeparisis which regarded as a tiresome duty. The Duchess, although de lighted to see him again, gave him no sign of welcome, bt instinctively he made straight for her, the charm that sh possessed, her tact, her simplicity making him look upoil her as a woman of exceptional intelligence. He was bounce moreover, in common politeness to go and talk to her, fo'} since he was a pleasant and a distinguished man, Mme. d} Guermantes frequently invited him to luncheon even wit} there were only her husband and herself besides, or i/§ 280 THE GUERMANTES WAY he autumn to Guermantes, making use of this intimacy 0 have him to dinner occasionally with Royalties who vere curious to meet him. For the Duchess liked to enter- ain certain eminent men, on condition always that they vere bachelors, a condition which, even when married, hey invariably fulfilled for her, for, as their wives, who tere bound to be more or less common, would have been blot on a drawing-room in which there were never any ut the most fashionable beauties in Paris, it was always mthout them that their husbands were invited; and the Juke, to avoid hurting any possible susceptibility, used ) explain to these involuntary widowers that the Duchess ‘ever had women in the house, could not endure feminine dciety, almost as though this had been under doctor’s tders, and as he might have said that she could not stay 1a room in which there were smells, or eat salt food, or tavel with her back to the engine, or wear stays. It was ‘ue that these eminent men used to see at the Guerman- ts’ the Princesse de Parme, the Princesse de Sagan whom Francoise, hearing her constantly mentioned, had tken to calling,in the belief that this feminine ending ‘as required by the laws of accidence, “the Sagante’’), d plenty more, but their presence was accounted for y the explanation that they were relatives, or such very d friends that it was impossible to exclude them. Whether * mot they were convinced by the explanations which the tuc de Guermantes had given of the singular malady iat made it impossible for the Duchess to associate with ther women, the great men duly transmitted them to ‘eir wives. Some of these thought that this malady was aly an excuse to cloak her jealousy, because the Duchess ished to reign alone over a court of worshippers. Others 281 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST more simple still thought that perhaps the Duchess ha some peculiar habit, a scandalous past it might be, thé women did not care to go to her house and that she gay the name of a whim to what was stern necessity. Th better among them, hearing their husbands expatiate the Duchess’s marvellous brain, assumed that she mui be so far superior to the rest of womankind that she fou their society boring since they could not talk intelligentl about anything. And it was true that the Duchess wé bored by other women, if their princely rank did n render them specially interesting. But the excluded wive were mistaken when they imagined that she chose 1 entertain men alone in order to be free to discuss wi them literature, science and philosophy. For she nev referred to these, at least with the great intellectuals. ] by virtue of a family tradition such as makes the daug ters of great soldiers preserve, in the midst of their mo frivolous distractions, a respect for military matters, ml the granddaughter of women who had been on terms | friendship with Thiers, Mérimée and Augier, felt that place must always be kept in her drawing-room for m of intellect, she had on the other hand derived from tl manner, at once condescending and intimate, in which tho famous men had been received at Guermantes the foi of looking on men of talent as family friends whose tale does not dazzle one, to whom one does not speak of the work, and who would not be at all interested if one di Moreover the type of mind illustrated by Mérimée a Meilhac and Halévy, which was hers also, led her by re tion from the verbal sentimentality of an earlier gener tion to a style in conversation that rejects everything to with fine language and the expression of lofty thoughts, 282 THE GUERMANTES WAY hat she made it a sort of element of good breeding when he was with a poet or a musician to talk only of the food hat they were eating or the game of cards to which they ould afterwards sit down. This abstention had, on a hird person not conversant with her ways, a disturbing ffect which amounted to mystification. Mme. de Guer- | antes, having asked him whether it would amuse him ‘come to luncheon to meet this or that famous poet, de- oured by curiosity he would arrive at the appointed hour. “he Duchess was talking to the poet about the weather. “hey sat down to luncheon. “Do you like this way of oing eggs?” she asked the poet. On hearing his approval, hich she shared, for everything in her own house ap- tore egos,” she would tell the butler, while the anxious ellow-guest sat waiting for what must surely have been the bject of the party, since they had arranged to meet, in pite of every sort of difficulty, before the Duchess, ge poet and he himself left Paris. But the meal went on, me after another the courses were cleared away, not ‘"ithout having first provided Mme. de Guermantes with portunities for clever witticisms or apt stories. Mean- vhile the poet went on eating, and neither Duke nor Juchess shewed any sign of remembering that he was a et. And presently the luncheon came to an end and ne party broke up, without a word having been said about ae poetry which, for all that, everyone admired but to which, by a reserve analogous to that of which Swann had iven me a foretaste, no one might refer. This reserve ‘as simply a matter of good form. But for the fellow- uest, if he thought at all about the matter, there was 283 $$ REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST something strangely melancholy about it all, and thes reals in the Guermantes household made him think o the hours which timid lovers often spend together i talking trivialities until it is time to part, without—whether from shyness, from audacity or from awkwardness—the great secret which they would have been happier had they confessed ever succeeding in passing from their hearts t their lips. It must, however, he added that this silence with regard to the serious matters which one was alway: waiting in vain to see approached, if it might pass a characteristic of the Duchess, was by no means constan with her. Mme. de Guermantes had spent her girlhoo in a society somewhat different, equally aristocratic bu less brilliant and above all less futile than that in whiel she now lived, and one of wide culture. It had left beneat her present frivolity a sort of bed-rock of greater solidit invisibly nutritious, to which indeed the Duchess woulk repair in search (very rarely, though, for she detest pedantry) of some quotation from Victor Hugo or Lamar tine which, extremely appropriate, uttered with a look true feeling from her fine eyes, never failed to surpris’ and charm her audience. Sometimes, even, without ani pretence of authority, pertinently and quite simply, sh would give some dramatist and Academician a piece cd sage advice, would make him modify a situation or alte an ending. If, in the drawing room of Mme. de Villeparisis, jus as in the church at Combray, on the day of Mlle. Per cepied’s wedding, I had difficulty in discovering, in th handsome, too human face of Mme. de Guermantes th unknown element of her name, I at least thought tha’ when she spoke, her conversation, profound, mysteriou’ 284 ——————— SHE GUERMANTES WAY jwould have a strangeness as of a mediaeval tapestry or a ‘gothic window. But in order that I should not be disap- pointed by the words which I should hear uttered by a ‘person who called herself Mme. de Guermantes, even if Thad not been in love with her, it would not have sufficed ‘that those words were fine, beautiful and profound, they would have had to reflect that amaranthine colour of the (closing syllable of her name, that colour which I had on my first sight of her been disappointed not to find in her \person and had driven to take refuge in her mind. Of ‘course I had already heard Mme. de Villeparisis, Saint- Loup, people whose intelligence was in no way extraor- dinary, pronounce without any precaution this name Guer- ‘mantes, simply as that of a person who was coming to see them or with whom they had promised to dine, without seeming to feel that there were latent in her name the glow jot yellowing woods in autumn and a whole mysterious tract of country. But this must have been an affectation on their part, as when the classic poets give us no warn- ing of the profound purpose which they had, all the same, iM writing, an affectation which I myself also strove to imitate, saying in the most natural tone: “The Duchesse de Guermantes,” as though it were a name that was just ike other names. And then everybody assured me that she was a highly intelligent woman, a clever talker, that she was one of a little group of most interesting people: words which became accomplices of my dream. For when they spoke of an intelligent group, of clever talk, it was iot at all the sort of intelligence that I knew that I Magined, not even that of the greatest minds, it was not it all with men like Bergotte that I peopled this group. No, by intelligence I understood an ineffable faculty 285 | | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | gilded by the sun, impregnated with a sylvan coolness.) Indeed, had she made the most intelligent remarks (in the sense in which I understood the word when it was usell of a philosopher or critic), Mme. de Guermantes would perhaps have disappointed even more keenly my expec- tation of so special a faculty than if, in the course of a trivial conversation, she had confined herself to discussing kitchen recipes or the furnishing of a country house, to mentioning the names of neighbours and relatives of her own, which would have given me a picture of her life,| “TI thought I should find Basin here, he was meaning to come and see you to-day,” said Mme. de Guermantes, to her aunt. | “TI haven’t set eyes on your husband for some days,”| replied Mme. de Villeparisis in a somewhat nettled tone, “In fact, I haven’t seen him—well, I have seen him once, perhaps—since that charming joke he played on me of making my servants announce him as the Queen of Sweden.” Mme. de Guermantes formed a smile by contracting the corners of her mouth as though she were biting her veil. | “We met her at dinner last night at Blanche Leroi’s. You wouldn’t know her now, she’s positively enormous; I’m sure she must have something the matter with her.” “I was just oes these gentlemen that you said sa looked like a frog.” Mme. de Guermantes uttered a sort of raucous sound intended to signify that she acknowledged the compliment. “I don’t remember making such a charming compari- son, but if she was one before, now she’s the frog that has’ succeeded in swelling to the size of the ox. Or rather, 286 THE GUERMANTES WAY it isn’t quite that, because all her swelling is concentrated in front of her waist, she’s more like a frog in an interest- ing condition.” _ “Ah, that is quite clever,” said Mme. de Villeparisis, secretly proud that her guests should be witnessing this display of her niece’s wit. “It is purely arbitrary, though,’ answered Mme. de Guermantes, ironically detaching this selected epithet, as Swann would have done, “for I must admit I never saw a frog in the family way. Anyhow, the frog in question, who, by the way, is not asking for a king, for I never saw her so skittish as she’s been since her husband died, is coming to dine with us one day next week. I promised ‘Pld let you know in good time.” _ Mme. de Villeparisis gave vent to a confused growl, from which emerged: “I know she was dining with the Mecklenburgs the night before last. Hannibal de ‘Breauté was there. He came and told me about it, and ‘Was quite amusing, I must say.” “There was a man there who’s a great deal wittier than 'Babal,” said Mme. de Guermantes who, in view of her ese Pann with M. de Bréauté-Consalvi, felt that she must advertise their intimacy by the use of this abbreviation. “I mean M. Bergotte.” I had never imagined that Bergotte could be regarded jas witty; in fact, I thought of him always as mingling with the intellectual section of humanity, that is to say Anfinitely remote from that mysterious realm of which I had caught a glimpse through the purple hangings of a theatre box, behind which, making the Duchess smile, M. de 'Bréauté was holding with her, in the language of the gods, that unimaginable thing, a conversation between people 287 } | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. I was stupefied to Bi the balance upset, and Bergotte rise above M. de Bréauteé But above all I was dismayed to think that I had avoided! Bergotte on the evening of Phedre, that I had not gone up and spoken to him, when I heard Mme. de Guermantes say to Mme. de Villeparisis: | “He is the only person I have any wish to know,” went on the Duchess, in whom one could always, as at the turn of a mental tide, see the flow of curiosity with regard te well-known intellectuals sweep over the ebb of her aristo- cratic snobbishness. “It would be such a pleasure.” ‘The presence of Bergotte by my side, which it woul have been so easy for me to secure but which I © thought liable to give Mme. de Guermantes a bad im- pression of myself, would no doubt, on the contrary, nae had the result that she would have signalled to me to join her in her box, and would have nested me to bring the eminent writer, one day, to luncheon. “T gather that he didn’t behave very well, he was ol sented to M. de Cobourg, and never uttered a word te him,” said Mme. de Gace dwelling on this odd characteristic as she might have recounted that a China- man had blown his nose on a sheet of paper. “ He neve once said ‘ Monseigneur’ to him,” she added, with an ain of amusement at this detail, as important to her mind ag the refusal of a Protestant, during an audience with the Pope, to go on his knees before his Holiness. Interested by these idiosyncrasies of Bergotte, she did not, however, appear to consider them réprehensible, and seemed rather to find a certain merit in them, though she would have been put to it to say of what sort. Despite this unusual mode of appreciating Bergotte’s originality, 288 \ ~-————— . _--— THE GUERMANTES WAY twas a fact which I was later on not to regard as wholly ) regligible that Mme. de Guermantes, ereatly to the sur- | rise of many of her friends, did consider Bergotte more, vitty than M. de Bréauté. Thus it is that such ieeeste ‘ubversive, isolated, and yet after all just, are delivered a the world of fashion by those rare minds that are ‘uperior to the rest.) And they sketch then the first rough | sutlines of the hierarchy of values as the next generation vill establish it, instead of abiding eternally by the old ‘tandards. | The Comte d’Argencourt, Chargé d’Affaires at the Selgian Legation and a remote connexion of Mme. de Tilleparisis, came limping in, followed presently by two ‘oung men, the Baron de Guermantes and H. H. the uc de Chateller-ult, whom Mme. de Guermantes greeted ‘vith: “ How d’ye do, young Chatellerault,” in a careless ‘one and without moving from her tuffet, for she was a ‘reat friend of the young Duke’s mother, which had given fim a deep and lifelong respect for her. Tall, slender, vith golden hair and sunny complexions, thoroughly of he Guermantes type, these two young men looked like | condensation of the light of the spring evening which vas flooding the spacious room. Following a custom which vas the fashion at that time they laid their silk hats on he floor, by their feet. The historian of the Fronde hought that they were embarrassed, like a peasant com- 8 into the mayor’s office and not knowing what to do th his hat. Feeling that he ought in charity to come to he rescue of the awkwardness and timidity which he ‘scribed to them: ' “No, no,” he said, “don’t leave them on the floor, ney’ll be trodden on.” I 289 s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST A glance from the Baron de Guermantes, tilting the plane of his pupils, shot suddenly from them a wave of pure and piercing azure which froze the well-nica a historian. “What is that person’s name?” I was asked by the Baron, who had just been introduced to me by Mme. de Villeparisis. | “M. Pierre,” I whispered. f “ Pierre what?” | “Pierre: it’s a name, he’s a historian, a most dis- tinguished man.’ | ce eee You don’t say so.’ “No, it’s a new fashion with these young men to put their hats on the floor,” Mme. de Villeparisis explaingy | “I’m like you, I can never get used to it. Still, it’s better than my nephew Robert, who always leaves his in the hall. I tell him when I see him come in that he looks just like a clockmaker, and I ask him if he’s come to wit the clocks.” “You were speaking just now, Madame la Marquise of M. Molé’s hat; we shall soon be able, like Aristotle; tc compile a eho on hats,” said the historian of thi Fronde, somewhat reassured by Mme. de Villeparisis’ intervention, but in so faint a voice that no one but my| self overheard him. “She really is astonishing, the little Duchess,” sai M. d’Argencourt, pointing to Mme. de Guermantes whi was talking toG . Whenever there’s a famous man ii the room you’re sure to find him sitting with her. Evi dently that must be the lion of the party over there. if can’t always be M. de Borelli, of course, or M. Schlum berger or M. d’Avenel. But then it’s bound to be M 290 THE GUERMANTES WAY Pierre Loti or M. Edmond Rostand. Yesterday evening vat the Doudeauvilles’, where by the way she was looking splendid in her emerald tiara and a pink dress with a long train, she had M. Deschanel on one side and the German Ambassador on the other: she was holding forth to them about China; the general public, at a respectful distance where they couldn’t hear what was being said, were wondering whether there wasn’t going to be war. Really, you’d have said she was a Queen, holding her circle.” Everyone had gathered round Mme. de Villeparisis to watch her painting. _ “Those flowers are a truly celestial pink,” said Legran- din, “I should say sky-pink. For there is such a thing as sky-pink just as there is sky-blue. But,” he lowered his woice in the hope that he would not be heard by anyone out the Marquise, “I think I shall still give my vote to the silky, living flesh tint of your rendering of them. You eave Pisanello and Van Huysun a long way behind, with their laborious, dead herbals.” An artist, however modest, is always willing to hear amself preferred to his rivals, and tries only to see that ‘ustice is done them. ay “What makes you think that/is that they painted the Jowers of their period, which ait have now, but = ——_ —= they did it with great skill.” _* Ah! The flowers of their period! That is a most in- senious theory,” exclaimed Legrandin. “TI see you’re painting some fine cherry blossoms—or ire they mayflowers? ” began the historian of the Fronde, 1ot without hesitation as to the flower, but with a note if confidence in his voice, for he was beginning to forget 291 a REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST the incident of the hats. “No; they’re apple blossom,” said the Duchesse dk Guermantes, addressing her aunt. 7 “ Ah! I see you’re a good countrywoman like me; yot can tell one flower from another.” | “Why yes, so they are! But I thought the season fo apple blossom was over now,” said the historian, seekin wildly to cover his mistake. | “Oh dear, no; far from it, it’s not out yet; the tree won’t be in blossom for another fortnight, not for thre weeks perhaps,” said the librarian who, since he helpe with the management of Mme. de Villeparisis’s estate was better informed upon country matters. “ At least three weeks,” put in the Duchess; “evei round Paris, where they’re very far forward. Down 1 Normandy, don’t you know, at his father’s place,” shi went on, pointing to the young Duc de Chatellerault “where they have some splendid apple trees close to th seashore, like a Japanese screen, they’re never really pinl until after the twentieth of May.” “TJ never see them,” said the young Duke, “ becaus they give me hay fever. Such a bore.” | “Hay fever? I never heard of that before,” said th historian. “It’s the fashionable complaint just now,” the libraria. informed him. “That all depends, you won’t get it at all, probably if it’s a good year for apples. You know Le Normand’ saying: ‘When it’s a good year for apples . . . ’,” putt M. d’Argencourt who, not being really French, was alway trying to give himself a Parisian air. “You're quite right,” Mme. de Villeparisis told he 292 THE GUERMANTES WAY | niece, “these are from the South. It was a florist who ‘ent them round and asked me to accept them as a present. fou’re surprised, I dare say, Monsieur Valmére,” ‘he turned to the librarian, “that a florist should make ae a present of apple blossom. Well, I may be an old yoman, but I’m not quite on the shelf yet, I have till a few friends,” she went on with a smile that aight have been taken as a sign of her simple nature mut meant rather, I could not help feeling, that she hought it effective to pride herself on the friendship ff a mere florist when she moved in such distinguished ircles. | Bloch rose and went over to look at the flowers which Ame. de Villeparisis was painting. “Never mind, Marquise,” said the historian, sitting own again, “even though we should have another of hose Revolutions which have stained so many pages of ur history with blood—and, upon my soul, in these days pe can never tell,” he added, with a circular and circum- pect glance, as though to make sure that there was no ‘disaffected ” person in the room, though he had not the fast suspicion that there actually was, “with a talent ‘ke yours and your five languages you would be certain get on all right.” The historian of the Fronde was feel- ag quite refreshed, for he had forgotten his insomnia. ut he suddenly remembered that he had not slept for ae last six nights, whereupon a crushing weariness, born f his mind, paralysed his limbs, made him bow his houlders, and his melancholy face began to droop like n old man’s. Bloch tried to express his admiration in an appropriate esture, but only succeeded in knocking over with his 293 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST elbow the glass containing the spray of apple blossom; and all the water was spilled on the carpet. | “Really, you have the fingers of a fairy,” went on (tc the Marquise) the historian who, having his back turned to me at that moment, had not noticed Bloch’s clumsiness) But Bloch took this for a sneer at himself, and to covei| his shame in insolence retorted: “It’s not of the slightest importance; I’m not wet.” Mme. de Villeparisis rang the bell and a footman came to wipe the carpet and pick up the fragments of glass: She invited the two young men to her theatricals, an¢ also Mme. de Guermantes, with the injunction: | “Remember to tell Giséle and Berthe” (the Duchesses d’Auberjon and de Portefin) “to be here a little before two to help me,” as she might have told the hired waiter to come early to arrange the tables. | She treated her princely relatives, as she treated M. di Norpois, without any of the little courtesies which shi shewed to the historian, Cottard, Bloch and myself, an¢ they seemed to have no interest for her beyond the possi bility of serving them up as food for our social curiosity) This was because she knew that she need not put hersel out to entertain people for whom she was not a more 0 less brilliant woman but the touchy old sister—who neede¢ and received tactful handling—of their father or uncle There would have been no object in her trying to shint before them, she could never have deceived them as t the strength and weakness of her position, for they knev (none so well) her whole history and respected the illus’ trious race from which she sprang./ But, above all, the! had ceased to be anything more for her than a dead stoel which would not bear fruit again, they would not let he’ 294 THE GUERMANTES WAY now their new friends, or share their pleasures. She could I otain from them only their occasional presence, or the ossibility of speaking of them, at her five o’clock tea- arties as, later on, in her Memoirs, of which these parties ere only a sort of rehearsal, a preliminary reading aloud { the manuscript before a selected audience. And the yeiety which all these noble kinsmen and kinswomen rved to interest, to dazzle, to enthral, the society of the jottards, of the Blochs, of the dramatists who were in 1e public eye at the moment, of the historians of the ronde and such matters; it was in this society that there disted for Mme. de Villeparisis—failing that section of ae fashionable world which did not call upon her—the ovement, the novelty, all the entertainment of life, it as from people like these that she was able to derive rcial benefits (which made it well worth her while to t them meet, now and then, though without ever coming know her, the Duchesse de Guermantes), dinners with smarkable men whose work had interested her, a light dera or a pantomime staged complete by its author in her ‘awing-room, boxes for interesting shows. Bloch got up ' go. He had said aloud that the incident of the broken ower-glass was of no importance, but what he said to ‘mself was different, more different still what he thought: If people can’t train their servants to put flowers where ey won't be knocked over and wet their guests and ‘obably cut their hands, it’s much better not to go in for ich luxuries,” he muttered angrily. He was one of those ssceptible, highly strung persons who cannot bear to ink of themselves as having made a blunder which, ough they do not admit even to themselves that the lve made it, is enough to spoil their whole day. In a 295 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | black rage, he was just making up his mind never to g into society again. He had reached the point at whe some distraction was imperative. Fortunately in anothe minute Mme. de Villeparisis was to press him to stay Either because she was aware of the general feeling amon her friends, and had noticed the tide of anti-semitism the was beginning to rise, or simply from carelessness, sh had not introduced him to any of the people in the roon| He, however, being little used to society, felt bound be fore leaving the room to take leave of them all, to shal his manners, but without any friendliness; he lowere his head several times, buried his bearded chin in hi collar, scrutinised each of the party in turn through hi glasses with a cold, dissatisfied glare. But Mme. de Ville parisis stopped him; she had still to discuss with him th little play which was to be performed in her house, an also she did not wish him to leave before he had had tk pleasure of meeting M. de Norpois (whose failure to ay pear puzzled her), although as an inducement to Bloch introduction was quite superfluous, he having already di cided to persuade the two actresses whose names he ha mentioned to her to come and sing for nothing in th Marquise’s drawing-room, to enhance their own reput tions, at one of those parties to which all that was be and noblest in Europe thronged. He had even offere her, in addition, a tragic actress “ with pure eyes, fa as Hera,” who would recite lyrical prose with a sens of plastic beauty. But on hearing this lady’s nan Mme. de Villeparisis had declined, for it was that of Sain Loup’s mistress. “I have better news,” she murmured in my ear, “ really believe he’s quite cooled off now, and that bef. | 296 THE GUERMANTES WAY very long they’il be parted—in spite of an officer who has layed an abominable part in the whole business,” she sdded. For Robert’s family were beginning to look with . deadly hatred on M. de Borodino, who had given him eave, at the hairdresser’s instance, to go to Bruges, and secused him of giving countenance to an infamous in- rigue. \“ It’s really too bad of him,” said Mme. de Ville- Becis with that virtuous accent common to all the Guer- antes, even the most depraved. “’Too, too bad,” she epeated, giving the word a trio of ‘t’s. One felt that she iad no doubt of the Prince’s being present at all their gies. But, as kindness of heart was the old lady’s domi- sant quality, her expression of frowning severity towards he horrible captain, whose name she articulated with an conical emphasis: “ The Prince de Borodino! ”_speak- ag as a woman for whom the Empire simply did not unt, melted into a gentle smile at myself with a me- hanical twitch of the eyelid indicating a vague under- tanding between us. _“Thave a great admiration for de Saint-Loup-en-Bray,” aid Bloch, “ dirty dog as he is, because he’s so extremely rell-bred. I have a great admiration, not for him but at well-bred people, they’re so rare,” he went on, with- t thinking, since he was himself so extremely ill-bred, rhat offence his words were giving. “I will give you an xample which I consider most striking of his perfect weeding. I met him once with a young gentleman just 8 he was about to spring into his wheeléd chariot, after himself had buckled their splendid harness on a pair f steeds, whose mangers were heaped with oats and bar- 'y, who had no need of the flashing whip to urge them on. le introduced us, but I did not catch the gentleman’s 297 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST mame; one never does catch people’s names when one introduced to them,” he explained with a laugh, this bei one of his father’s witticisms. “De Saint-Loup-en-Br was perfectly calm, made no fuss about the young gentle man, seemed absolutely at his ease. Well, I found out, pure chance, a day or two later, that the young gentle man was the son of Sir Rufus Israels!” | The end of this story sounded less shocking than r preface, for it remained quite incomprehensible to every one in the room. The fact was that Sir Rufus Israel} who seemed to Bloch and his father an almost royal pe sonage before whom Saint-Loup ought to tremble, was : the eyes of the Guermantes world a foreign upstar tolerated in society, on whose friendship nobody wou! ever have dreamed of priding himself, far from it. “I learned this,” Bloch informed us, “from the pers¢ who holds Sir Rufus’s power of attorney; he is a frier of my father, and quite an extraordinary man. Oh, é absolutely wonderful individual,” he assured us with th; affirmative energy, that note of enthusiasm which o1 puts only into those convictions that did not originate wi oneself. “Tell me,” Bloch went on, lowering his voice, to m+ self, “how much do you suppose Saint-Loup has? Ni that it matters to me in the least, you quite understan| don’t you. I’m interested from the Balzacian point | view. You don’t happen to know what it’s in, Fren stocks, foreign stocks, or land or what?” I could give him no information whatsoever. Sudden raising his voice, Bloch asked if he might open the wi+ dows, and without waiting for an answer, went across t) room to do so. Mme. de Villeparisis protested that } 298. THE GUERMANTES WAY rust not, that she had a cold. “ Of course, if it’s bad for ou! ” Bloch was downcast. “ But you can’t Say it’s not ‘ot in here.” And breaking into a laugh he put into the aze with which he swept the room an appeal for support gainst Mme. de Villeparisis. He received none, from aese well-bred people. His blazing eyes, having failed to tduce any of the guests from Wee allegiance, faded with ssignation to their normal gravity of expression; he ac- nowledged his defeat with: “‘ What’s the temperature? eventy-two, at least, I should say. I’m not surprised. ‘m simply dripping. And I have not, like the sage An- mor, son of the river Alpheus, the power to plunge ayself i in the paternal wave to stanch my sweat before lying my body in a bath of polished marble and anoint- ig my limbs with fragrant oils.” And with that need hich people feel to Reine for the use of others medical feories the application of which would be beneficial to aeir own health: “ Well, if you believe it’s good for you! ‘must say, | think you’re quite wrong. It’s exactly what ives you your cold.” Bloch was overjoyed at the idea of meeting M. de Nor- Bie. He would like, he told us, to get him to talk about le Dreyfus case. “’There’s a mentality at work there ‘hich I don’t altogether understand, and it would be uite sensational to get an interview out of this eminent iplomat,” he said in a tone of sarcasm, so as not to Dpear to be rating himself below the Ambassador. ‘Mme. de Villeparisis was sorry that he had said this so ig but minded less when she saw that the librarian, those strong Nationalist views kept her, so to speak, on ash, was too far off to have overheard. She was more tocked to hear Bloch, led on by that demon of ill-breed- 299 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST ing which made him permanently blind to the conse quences of what he said, inquiring, with a laugh at th paternal pleasantry: “ Haven’t I read a learned treatise by him in which he sets forth a string of irrefutable arguments to prove that the Japanese war was bound tc end in a Russian victory and a Japanese defeat? He’ fairly paralytic now, isn’t he? I’m sure he’s the old boy Pve seen taking aim at his chair before sliding acros the room to it, as if he was on wheels.” “Oh, dear, no! Not in the least like that! Just wait ¢ minute,” the Marquise went on, “I don’t know what he can be doing.” She rang the bell and, when the servant had appeared as she made no secret, and indeed liked to advertise th fact that her old friend spent the greater part of his tim in her house: “Go and tell M. de Norpois to come in/ she ordered him, “he is sorting some papers in mj library; he said he would be twenty minutes, and I’y been waiting now for an hour and three-quarters. He wil tell you about the Dreyfus case, anything you want t know,” she said gruffly to Bloch. “He doesn’t approv much of the way things are going.” 4 For M. de Norpois was not on good terms with th Government of the day, and Mme. de Villeparisis, al though he had never taken the liberty of bringing any actual Ministers to her house (she still preserved all th unapproachable dignity of a great lady, and remained out side and above the political relations which he was oblige to cultivate), was kept well informed by him of every thing that went on. Then, too, the politicians of the dai would never have dared to ask M. de Norpois to intro duce them to Mme. de Villeparisis. But several of then 300 THE GUERMANTES WAY iad gone down to see him at her house in the country yhen they needed his advice or help at critical conjunc- ures. One knew the address. One went to the house. Dne did not see its mistress. But at dinner that evening he would say: “T hear they’ve been down here bothering you. I trust hings are going better.” “You are not in a hurry?” she now asked Bloch. “No, not at all. I wanted to go because I am not very well; in fact there is some talk of my taking a cure at Vichy for my biliary ducts,” he explained, articulating the ast words with a fiendish irony. _ “Why, that’s where my nephew Chatellerault’s got to yo, you must fix it up together. Is he still in the room? de’s a nice boy, you know,” said Mme. de Villeparisis, and may quite well have meant what she said, feeling chat two people whom she knew had no reason not to be friends with each other. _ “Oh, I dare say he wouldn’t care about that—I don’t really know him—at least I barely know him. He is sit- ting over there,” stammered Bloch in an ecstasy of confusion. _ The butler could not have delivered his mistress’s mes- sage properly, for M. de Norpois, to make believe that he had just come in from the street, and had not yet seen his hostess, had picked up the first hat that he had found jn the hall, and came forward to kiss Mme. de Villeparisis’s hand with great ceremony, asking after her health with all the interest that people shew after a long separation. He was not aware that the Marquise had already destroyed any semblance of reality in this charade, which she cut short by taking M. de Norpois and Bloch into an adjoin- 301 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST ing room. Bioch, who had observed all the courtesy tha! was being shewn to a person whom he had not yet dis, covered to be M. de Norpois, had said to me, trying t¢ seem at his ease: “Who is that old idiot?” Perhaps. too, all this bowing and scraping by M. de Norpois had really shocked the better element in Bloch’s nature the freer and more straightforward manners of a youngei generation, and he was partly sincere in condemning it ag absurd. However that might be, it ceased to appear ab. surd, and indeed delighted him the moment it was himself Bloch, to whom the salutations were addressed. , ceremonious, in relation to one particular man which, in the house of a distinguished woman, in contrast to the liberties that she takes with her other guests, marks that man out instantly as her lover. M. de Norpois drowned his azure gaze in his white| beard, bent his tall body deep down as though he were bowing before all the famous and (to him) imposing con- notations of the name Bloch, and murmured: “I am de- lighted . . .” whereat his young listener, moved, but feel- ing that the illustrious diplomat was going too far, has- tened to correct him, saying: “Not at all! On the con- trary, it is I who am delighted.” But this ceremony, which 302 | THE GUERMANTES WAY | M. de Norpois, in his friendship for Mme. de Villeparisis, repeated for the benefit of every fresh person that his old friend introduced to him, did not seem to her adequate to the deserts of Bloch, to whom she said: ' “Just ask him anything you want to know; take him nto the other room if it’s more convenient; he will be de- lighted to talk to you. I think you wished to speak to him about the Dreyfus case,” she went on, no more consider- ing whether this would suit M. de Norpois than she would have thought of asking leave of the Duchesse de Montmorency’s portrait before having it lighted up for the historian, or of the tea before pouring it into a cup. ' “You must speak loud,” she warned Bloch, “ he’s a lit- tle deaf, but he will tell you anything you want to know; he knew Bismarck very well, and Cavour. That is so, isn’t it;” she raised her voice, “you knew Bismarck well?” _ “Have you got anything on the stocks?” M. de Norpois asked me with a knowing air as he shook my hand warmly. I took the opportunity to relieve him politely of the hat which he had felt obliged to bring ceremonially into the room, for I saw that it was my own which he had inad- wertently taken. “ You shewed me a somewhat laboured little thing in which you went in for a good deal of hair- splitting. I gave you my opinion quite frankly; what you had written was literally not worth the trouble of putting it on paper. Are you thinking of letting us have anything else? You were greatly smitten with Bergotte, if I re- member rightly.” “You're not to say anything against Bergotte,” put in the Duchess. “I don’t dispute his talent as a painter; no one would, Duchess. He understands all about etching, if not brush-work on a large scale like 393 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST M. Cherbuhez. But it seems to me that in these days we have a tendency to confuse the arts, and forget that the novelist’s business is rather to weave a plot and edify his readers than to fiddle away at producing a frontispiec or tailpiece in drypoint. I shall be seeing your father on Sunday at our good friend A. J.’s,” he went on, turning again to myself. I had hoped for a moment, when I saw him talking to Mme. de Guermantes, that he would perhaps afford me, for getting myself asked to her house, the help he had refused me for getting to Mme. Swann’s. “ Another of my great favourites,” I told him, “is Elstir. It seems the Duchesse de Guermantes has some wonderful examples of his work, particularly that admirable Bunch of Rad- ishes which I remember at the Exhibition and should so much like to see again; what a masterpiece that is!” And indeed, if I had been a prominent person and had been asked to state what picture I liked best, I should have named this Bunch of Radishes. “A masterpiece?” cried M. de Norpois with a surprised and reproachful air. “ It makes no pretence of being even a picture, it is merely a sketch.” (He was right.) “ If you label a clever little thing of that sort ‘masterpiece’, what have you got to say about Hébert’s Virgin or Dagnan-Bouveret? ” “I heard you refusing to let him bring Robert’s woman,” said Mme. de Guermantes to her aunt, after Bloch had taken the Ambassador aside. “I don’t think you'll miss much, she’s a perfect horror, as you know, without a vestige of talent, and besides she’s grotesquely ugly.” “Do you mean to say, you know her, Duchess?” asked M. d’Argencourt. 304 4 bia Se Fz THE GUERMANTES WAY “Yes, didn’t you know that she performed in my house vefore the whole of Paris, not that that’s anything for me o be proud of,” explained Mme. de Guermantes with a augh, glad nevertheless, since the actress was under dis- ussion, to let it be known that she herself had had the Ist fruits of 2 foolishness. “ Hallo, I suppose I ought ‘0 be going now,” she added, without moving. | She had just seen her husband enter the room, and hese words were an allusion to the absurdity of their ap- vearing to be paying a call together, like a newly married ouple, rather than to the often strained relations that xisted between her and the enormous fellow she had aarried, who, despite his increasing years, still led the fe of a gay bachelor. Ranging over the considerable arty that was gathered round the tea-table the genial, ynical gaze—dazzled a little by the brightness of the set- ng sun—of the little round pupils lodged in the exact entre of his eyes, like the “bulls” which the excellent aarksman that he was could always hit with such per- ect aim and precision, the Duke came forward with a ewildered cautious slowness as though, alarmed by so rilliant a gathering, he was afraid of treading on ladies’ irts and interrupting conversations. A permanent smile Betts a “Good King of Yvetot ”’—slightly pom- s, a half-open hand floating like a shark’s fin by ls b side, which he allowed to be vaguely clasped by is old friends and by the strangers who were intro- uced to him, enabled him, without his having to make single movement, or to cee his genial, lazy, royal Togress, to reward the assiduity of them all by simply durmuring: “ How do, my boy; how do, my dear friend; harmed, Monsieur Bloch; how do, Argencourt;” and, I 305 T REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST on coming to myself, who was the most highly favoured when he had been told my name: “ How do, my youn neighbour, how’s your father? What a splendid fellow he is!”” He made no great demonstration except to Mme. de Villeparisis, who gave him good-day with a nod of he head, drawing one hand from a pocket of her little apron Being formidably rich in a world where everyone wa: steadily growing poorer, and having secured the permanen; attachment to his person of the idea of this enormous for tune, he displayed all the vanity of the great noblemar reinforced by that of the man of means, the refinement anc breeding of the former just managing to control the lat ter’s self-sufficiency. One could understand, moreover that his success with women, which made his wife so un: happy, was not due merely to his name and fortune, for he was still extremely good looking, and his profile re. tained the purity, the firmness of outline of a Gree god’s. “Do you mean to tell me she performed in you house?” M. d’Argencourt asked the Duchess. “Well, don’t you see, she came to recite, with a bunel of lilies in her hand, and more lilies on her dwess.”? Mme de Guermantes shared her aunt’s affectation of pronoune ing certain words in an exceedingly rustic fashion, but never rolled her ‘r’s like Mme. de Villeparisis. Before M. de Norpois, under constraint from his hostess had taken Bloch into the little recess where they coule talk more freely, I went up to the old diplomat for moment and put in a word about my father’s Academic chair. He tried first of all to postpone the conversation t¢ another day. I pointed out that I was going to Balbec “What? Going again to Balbec? Why, you’re a regula 306 | TITHE GUERMANTES WAY ybe-trotter.” He listened to what I had to say. At the me of Leroy-Beaulieu, he looked at me suspiciously. I njectured that he had perhaps said something dis- raging to M. Leroy-Beaulieu about my father and was raid of the economist’s having repeated it to him. All once he seemed animated by a positive affection for 7 father. And after one of those opening hesitations t of which suddenly a word explodes as though in spite ‘the speaker, whose irresistible conviction prevails over ; half-hearted efforts at silence: “ No, no,” he said to * with emotion, “your father must not stand. In his m interest he must not; it is not fair to himself; he owes certain respect to his own really great merits, which uld be compromised by such an adventure. He is too xa man for that. If he should be elected, he will have srything to lose and nothing to gain. He is not an orator, ank heaven. And that is the one thing that counts with dear colleagues, even if you only talk platitudes. Your her has an important goal in life; he should march aight ahead towards it, and not allow himself to turn ide to beat bushes, even the bushes (more thorny for it matter than flowery) of the grove of Academe. Be- es, he would not get many votes. The Academy likes ‘keep a postulant waiting for some time before taking hn to its bosom. For the present, there is nothing to be ne. Later on, I don’t say. But he must wait until the ciety itself comes in quest of him. It makes a practice, ta very fortunate practice, a fetish rather, of the fara $e of our friends across the Alps. Leroy-Beaulieu dke to me about all this in a way I did not at all like, rointed out to him, a little sharply perhaps, that a man sustomed as he is to dealing with colonial imports and 397 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST metals could not be expected to understand the part play! by the imponderables, as Bismarck used to say. Bi whatever happens, your father must on no account p himself forward as a candidate. Principis obsta. H friends would find themselves placed in a delicate positi if he suddenly called upon them for their votes. Indeec he broke forth, with an air of candour, fixing his bl eyes on my face, “I am going to say a thing that you w be surprised to hear coming from me, who am so fo of your father. Well, simply because I am fond of hi (we are known as the inseparables—Arcades ambo), sit ply because I know the immense service that he can st render to his country, the reefs from which he can st her if he remains at the helm; out of affection, out of hi regard for him, out of patriotism, I should not vote f him. I fancy, moreover, that I have given him to und stand that I should not.” (I seemed to discern in his ey the stern Assyrian profile of Leroy-Beaulieu.) “So tk to give him my vote now would be a sort of recantati on my part.” M. de Norpois repeatedly dismissed brother Academicians as old fossils. Other reasons apa every member of a club or academy likes to ascribe his fellow members the type of character that is the dir converse of his own, less for the advantage of being al to say: “Ah! If it only rested with me!” than for t satisfaction of making the election which he himself t managed to secure seem more difficult, a greater disti tion. “I may tell you,” he concluded, “that in the b interests of you all, I should prefer to see your fatl triumphantly elected in ten or fifteen years’ time.” Wot which I assumed to have been dictated if not by jealou at any rate by an utter lack of any willingness to obli 308 THE GUERMANTES WAY id which later on I was to recall when the course of vents had given them a different meaning. “You haven’t thought of giving the Institute an address 1 the price of bread during the Fronde, I suppose,” the storian of that movement timidly inquired of M. de orpois. “ You could make a considerable success of a bject like that,” (which was to say, “ you would give me colossal advertisement,”) he added, smiling at the Am- issador pusillanimously, but with a warmth of feeling aich made him raise his eyelids and expose a double izon of eye. I seemed to have seen this look before, id yet I had met the historian for the first time this ternoon. Suddenly I remembered having seen the same pression in the eyes of a Brazilian doctor who claimed ‘be able to cure choking fits of the kind from which I ffered by some absurd inhalation of the essential oils plants. When, in the hope that he would pay more tention to my case, I had told him that I knew Pro- ssor Cottard, he had replied, as though speaking in ittard’s interest: “ Now this treatment of mine, if you sre to tell him about it, would give him the material for most sensational paper for the Academy of Medicine! ” > had not ventured to press the matter but had stood zing at me with the same air of interrogation, timid, Xious, appealing, which it had just puzzled me to see (the face of the historian of the Fronde. Obviously the © men were not acquainted and had little or nothing © ‘common, but psychological like physical laws have a wre or less general application. And the requisite con- dons are the same; an identical expression lights the es of different human animals, as a single sunrise hts different places, a long way apart, which have no 309 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST connexion with one another. I did not hear the A bassador’s reply, for the whole party, with a good deal noise, had again gathered round Mme. de Villeparisis watch her at work. “You know who’ we’re talking about, Basin?” Duchess asked her husband. | “I can make a pretty good guess,” said the Duke. “Ah! As an actress she’s not, I’m afraid, in what ¢ would call the great tradition.” “You can’t imagine,” went on Mme. de Guerman‘ to M. d’Argencourt, “anything more ridiculous.” “In fact, it was drolatic,” put in M. de Guermé tes, whose odd vocabulary enabled people in society { declare that he was no fool and literary people, at te same time, to regard him, as a complete imbecile. “What I fail to understand,” resumed the Duche! “is how in the world Robert ever came to fall in le with her. Oh, of course I know one mustn’t discuss th sort of thing,” she added, with the charming pout of} philosopher and sentimentalist whose last illusion h long been shattered. “I know that anybody may fall: love with anybody else. And,” she went on, for, thout she might still laugh at modern literature, it, either its dissemination through the popular press or else in t: course of conversation, had begun to percolate into ht mind, “that is the really nice thing about love, becat: it’s what makes it so ‘ mysterious ’.” “ Mysterious! Oh, I must confess, cousin, that’s a It beyond me,” said the Comte d’Argencourt. “Oh dear, yes, it’s a very mysterious thing, love,” ¢ clared the Duchess, with the sweet smile of a goc natured woman of the world, but also with the root! 310 ul eee THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘nyiction with which a Wagnerian assures a bored gentle- van from the Club that there is something more than just bise in the Walkiire. After all, one never does know hat makes one person fall in love with another; it may st be at all what we think,” she added with a smile, re- udiating at once by this interpretation the idea she had i suggested. “ After all, one never knows anything, does ae?” she concluded with an air of weary sSynuelion Besides, one understands, doesn’t one; one simply can’t «plain other people’s choices in love.” , But having laid down this principle she proceeded at ace to abandon it and to criticise Saint-Loup’ s choice. | “ All the same, don’t you know, it is amazing to me that ‘man can find any attraction in a person who's simply ll 9 Bloch, hearing Saint-Loup’ s name mentioned and gath- ing that he was in Paris, promptly made a remark about a so outrageous that averybody was shocked. He was eginning to nourish hatreds, and one felt that he would | ‘op at nothing to gratify aa Once he had established te principle that he himself was of great moral worth nd that the sort of people who frequented La Boulie (an thletic club which he supposed to be highly fashionable) served penal servitude, every blow he could get in gainst them seemed to him praiseworthy. He went so a once as to speak of a lawsuit which he was anxious » bring against one of his La Boulie friends. In the | of the trial he proposed to give certain evidence which would be entirely untrue, though the defendant ‘ould be unable to impugn his veracity. In this way ‘loch (who, incidentally, never put his plan into action) ounted on baffling and infuriating his antagonist. What 311 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST harm could there be in that, since he whom he sought injure was a man who thought only of doing the “ rig thing”, a La Boulie man, and against people like that a weapon was justified, especially in the hands of a Sai such as Bloch himself. | “TI say, though, what about Swann?” objected d’Argencourt, who having at last succeeded in und standing the point of his cousin’s speech, was impress by her accuracy of observation, and was racking | brains for instances of men who had fallen in love w; women in whom he himself had seen no attraction. “Oh, but Swann’s case was quite different,” t Duchess protested. “It was a great surprise, I adm because she’s just a well-meaning idiot, but she was ney silly, and she was at one time good looking.” | “Oh, oh!” muttered Mme. de Villeparisis. “You never thought so? Surely, she had some char ing points, very fine eyes, good hair, she used to dre: and does still dress wonderfully. Nowadays, I quite agr she’s horrible, but she has been a lovely woman in h time. Not that that made me any less sorry when Charl married her, because it was so unnecessary.” The Duche had not intended to say anything out of the common, b as M. d’Argencourt began to laugh she repeated the} last words—either because she thought them amusing because she thought it nice of him to laugh—and look up at him with a coaxing smile, to add the enchantme of her femininity to that of her wit. She went on: “ Ye really, it wasn’t worth the trouble, was it; still, after a) she did have some charm and I can quite understand an body’s falling in love with her, but if you saw Robert girl, I assure you, you’ld simply die of laughter. Oh, 312 | j ae eT. : THE GUERMANTES WAY now somebody’s going to quote Augier at me: ‘ What aatters the bottle so long as one gets drunk?’ Well, sobert may have got drunk, all right, but he certainly lasn’t shewn much taste in his choice of a bottle! First Fall, would you believe that she actually expected me to jt up a staircase right in the middle of my drawing-room. oh, a mere nothing—what?—and she announced that she vas going to lie flat on her stomach on the steps. And ien, if you’d heard the things she recited, I only remem- jer one scene, but I’m sure nobody could i eta gine any- jung like it: it was called the Seven Princesses.” | “Seven Princesses! Dear, dear, what a snob she must ‘le cried M. d’Argencourt. ne But wait a minute, why, hk know the whole play. The author sent a copy to the ‘ing, who couldn’t understand a word of it and called ime to Ee it to him. “Tt isn’t by any chance, from the Sar Peladan?” asked ie historian of the Fronde, meaning to make a subtle and )pical allusion, but in so low a tone that his question lassed unnoticed. . | *So you know the Seven Princesses, do you?” replied le Duchess. “I congratulate you! I only know one, but he’s quite enough; I have no wish to make «he ac- jaaintance of the other six. If they are all like the one ve seen! ” “What a goose!” I thought to myself. Irritated by the ‘ldness of her greeting, I found a sort of bitter satisfac- fon i in this proof of et complete inability to understand laeterlinck. “To think that’s the woman I walk miles ery morning to see. Really, I’m too kind. Well, it’s my ‘tl now not to want to see her.” Thus I reasoned with yself; but my words ran counter to my thoughts; they : : 313 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST were purely conversational words such as we say to ow selves at those moments when, too much excited to r) main quietly alone, we feel the need, for want of anti} listener, to talk to ourselves, without meaning what y¥| say, as we talk to a stranger. ~ “T can’t tell you what it was like,” the Duchess wel on; “you simply couldn’t help laughing. Not that anyol) tried; rather the other way, I’m sorry to say, for tl D young person was not at all pleased and Robert has nev! really forgiven me. Though I can’t say I’m sorry, actuall because if it had been a success the lady would pera) have come again, and I don’t quite see Marie-Aynard a) proving of that.” | This was the name given in the family to Robert’s mothe Mme. de Marsantes, the widow of Aynard de Saint-Lou to distinguish her from her cousin, the Princesse de Gue mantes-Baviére, also a Marie, to whose Christian nan! her nephews and cousins and brothers-in-law added, | avoid confusion, either that of her husband or another | her own, making her Marie-Gilbert or Marie-Hedwige. | “To begin with, there was a sort of rehearsal the nig) before, which was a wonderful affair!” went on Mme. « Guermantes in ironical pursuit of her theme. “ Ju, imagine, she uttered a sentence, no, not so much, not | quarter of a sentence, and then she stopped; she didn open her mouth—I’m not exaggerating—for a good fix minutes.” “Oh, I say,” cried M. d’Argencourt. | “With the utmost politeness I took the liberty of hin ing to her that this might seem a little unusual. And sk. said—I give you her actual words—‘ One ought alway. to repeat a thing as though one were just composing it ont 314 ‘ = ae me THE GUERMANTES WAY aif? When you think of it, that really is monumental.” *“But I understood she wasn’t at all bad at reciting etry,” said one of the two young men. “ She hasn’t the ghost of a notion what poetry is,’ : splied Mme. de Guermantes. “ However, I didn’t need to sten to her to tell that. It was quite enough to see her ome in with her lilies. I knew at once that she couldn’t ave any talent when I saw those lilies!” Everybody laughed. ““T hope, my dear aunt, you aren’t angry with me, over y little joke the other day about the Queen of Sweden. ie come to ask your forgiveness.” “Oh, no, I’m not at all angry, I even give you leave to it at 3g table, if you're hungry—Come along, M. Val- ‘ere, you’re the daughter of the house,” Mme. de Ville- ifisis went on to the librarian, repeating a time-honoured ‘easantry. M. de Guermantes sat upright in the armchair in which : had come to anchor, his hat on the carpet by his side, id examined with a satisfied smile the plate of little kes that was being held out to him. be Why, certainly, now that I am beginning to feel at ome in this distinguished company, I will take a sponge- ke; they look excellent.” “This gentleman makes you an admirable daughter,” mmented M. d’Argencourt, whom the spirit of imitation jompted to keep Mme. de Villeparisis’s little joke in ‘culation. ‘The librarian handed the plate of cakes to the historian the Fronde. “You perform your functions admirably,” said the ‘ter, startled into speech, and hoping also to win the 315 la. he REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST sympathy of the crowd. At the same time he cast covert glance of connivance at those who had anticipate him. “Tell me, my dear aunt,” M. de Guermantes inquir of Mme. de Villeparisis, “ who was that rather good-lool ing man who was going out just now as Icamein? I mu; know him, because he gave me a sweeping bow, but couldn’t place him at all; you know I never can rememby names, it’s such a nuisance,” he added, in a tone of sati faction. “M. Legrandin.” “Oh, but Oriane has a cousin whose mother, if I’m nm mistaken, was a Grandin. Yes, I remember quite wel she was a Grandin de l’Epervier.” | “No,” replied Mme. de Villeparisis, “no relation ; all. These are plain Grandins. Grandins of nothing at But they’ld be only too glad to be Grandins of anythi you chose to name. This one has a sister called Mme. ¢ Cambremer.” “Why, Basin, you know quite well who’ my a means,” cried the Duchess indignantly, “ He’s the broth of that great graminivorous creature you had the wei idea of sending to call on me the other day. She stayed solid hour; I thought I should go mad. But I began b thinking it was she who was mad when I saw a person didn’t know come browsing into the room looking exac like a cow.” } “Listen, Oriane; she asked me what afternoon yo were at home; I couldn’t very well be rude to her; an besides, you do exaggerate so, she’s not in the least like cow,” he added in a plaintive tone, though not without quick smiling glance at the audience. y 316 THE GUERMANTES WAY He knew that his wife’s lively wit needed the stimulus f contradiction, the contradiction of common sense which yrotests that one cannot (for instance) mistake a woman eriously for a cow; by this process Mme. de Guermantes, inlarging upon her original idea, had been inspired to pro- luce many of her most brilliant sayings. And the Duke in us innocent fashion helped her, without seeming to do so, o bring off her effects like, in a railway carriage, thé unac- nowledged partner of the three-card player. “T admit she doesn’t look like a cow, she looks like a lozen,” exclaimed Mme. de Guermantes. “I assure you, . didn’t know what to do when I saw a herd of cattle ome marching into my drawing-room in a hat and heard hem ask me how I was. I had half a mind to say: Please, herd of cattle, you must be making a mistake, rou can’t possibly know me, because you’re a herd of attle,’ but after racking my brains over her I came to the ‘onclusion that your Cambremer woman must be the nianta Dorothea, who had said she was coming to see me me day, and is rather bovine also, so that I was just on he point of saying: ‘Your Royal Highness’ and using he third person to a herd of cattle. The cut of her dewlap minded me rather, too, of the Queen of Sweden. But his massed attack had been prepared for by long range tillery fire, according to all the rules of war. For I don’t now how long before, I was bombarded with her cards; I ised to find them lying about all over the house, on all! the ables and chairs, like prospectuses. I couldn’t think what hey were supposed to be advertising. You saw nothing in he house but ‘Marquis et Marquise de Cambremer’ with some address or other which I’ve forgotten; you may ’e quite sure nothing will ever take me there.” oe REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “ But it’s a great distinction to look like a Queen,” said the historian of the Fronde. “Gad, sir, Kings and Queens, in these days, don’t’ amount to much,” said M, de Guermantes, partly because he liked to be thought broad-minded and modern, and also so as to not to seem to attach any importance to his own royal friendships, which he valued highly. Bloch and M. de Norpois had returned from the other room and came towards us. “Well, sir,” asked Mme. de Villeparisis, “have you been talking to him about the Dreyfus case? ” M. de Norpois raised his eyes to the ceiling, but with a smile, as though calling on heaven to witness the mon- strosity of the caprices to which his Dulcinea compelled him to submit. Nevertheless he spoke to Bloch with great affability of the terrible, perhaps fatal period through which France was passing. As this presumably meant that M. de Norpois (to whom Bloch had confessed his belief in the in- nocence of Dreyfus) was an ardent anti-Dreyfusard, the Ambassador’s geniality, his air of tacit admission that his listener was in the right, of never doubting that they were’ both of the same opinion, of being prepared to join forces with him to overthrow the Government, flattered Bloch’s vanity and aroused his curiosity. What were the important points which M. de Norpois never specified but on which he seemed implicitly to affirm that he was in agreement with Bloch; what opinion, then, did he hold of the case, that could bring them together? Bloch was all the more aston- ished at the mysterious unanimity which seemed to exist between him and M. de Norpois, in that it was not con- fined to politics, Mme. de Villeparisis having spoken at some length to M. de Norpois of Bloch’s literary work. — 318 THE GUERMANTES WAY “You are not of your age,” the former Ambassador old him, “and I congratulate you upon that. You are ot of this age in which disinterested work no longer xxists, in which writers offer the public nothing but ob- cenities or ineptitudes. Efforts such as yours ought to e encouraged, and would be, if we had a Government.” _ Bloch was flattered by this picture of himself swimming lone amid a universal shipwreck. But here again he rould have been glad of details, would have liked to now what were the ineptitudes to which M. de Norpois eferred. Bloch had the feeling that he was working along ae same lines as plenty of others; he had never supposed imself to be so exceptional. He returned to the Dreyfus ase, but did not succeed in elucidating M. de Norpois’s wn views. He tried to induce him to speak of the officers those names were appearing constantly i in the newspapers t that time; they aroused more curiosity than the poli- cians who were involved also, because they were not, like he politicians, well known already, but, wearing a special arb, emerging from the obscurity of a different kind of fe and a religiously guarded silence, simply stood up nd spoke and disappeared again, like Lohengrin landing rom a skiff drawn by a swan. Bloch had been able, thanks 2a Nationalist lawyer of his acquaintance, to secure ad- ussion to several hearings of the Zola trial. He would rive there in the morning and stay until the court rose, mth a packet of sandwiches and a flask of coffee, as nough for the final examination for a degree, and this hange of routine stimulating a nervous excitement which ne coffee and the emotional interest of the trial worked p to a climax, he would come out so enamoured of every- hing that had happened in court that, in the evening, as 319 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST he sat at home, he would long to immerse himself agai, in that beautiful dream and would hurry out, to a resta rant frequented by both parties, in search of friends wit) whom he would go over interminably the whole of th day’s proceedings, and make up, by a supper ordered i an imperious tone which gave him the illusion of powel for the hunger and exhaustion of a day begun so earl) and unbroken by any interval for luncheon.| The huma, mind, hovering perpetually between the two planes ¢ experience and imagination, seeks to fathom the ideal lif! of the people it knows and to know the people whose lif it has had to imagine. To Bloch’s questions M. de Nor pois replied: | “There are two officers involved in the case now bein, tried of whom I remember hearing some time ago from | man in whose judgment I felt great confidence, and wh praised them both highly—I mean M. de Miribel. The; are Lieutenant-Colonel Henry and Lieutenant-Colone Picquart.” | “But,” exclaimed Bloch, “the divine Athena, daughte. of Zeus, has put in the mind of one the opposite of wha is in the mind of the other. And they are fighting agains’ one another like two lions. Colonel Picquart had a splen did position in the Army, but his Moira has led him to thi side that was not rightly his. The sword of the Nationalist will carve his tender flesh, and he will be cast out as foo| for the beasts of prey and the birds that wax fat upot| the bodies of men.” | M. de Norpois made no reply. ‘ “What are those two palavering about over there?? M. de Guermantes asked Mme. de Villeparisis, indicatins M. de Norpois and Bloch. fe 320 THE GUERMANTES WAY “The Dreyfus case.” “The devil they are. By the way, do you know who is red-hot supporter of Dreyfus? I give you a thousand uesses. My nephew Robert! I can tell you that, at the ockey, when they heard of his goings on, there was a fine athering of the clans, a regular hue and cry. And as e’s coming up for election next week . . .” ‘“Of course,” broke in the Duchess, if they’re all like lilbert, who keeps on saying that all the Jews ought to ls sent back to Jerusalem.” “ Indeed; then the Prince de Guermantes is quite of my ‘ay of thinking,” put in M. d’Argencourt. The Duke made a show of his wife, but did not love 'r. Extremely self-centred, he hated to be interrupted, asides he was in the habit, at home, of treating her tutally. Convulsed with the twofold rage of a bad hus- ind when his wife speaks to him, and a good talker when 24s not listened to, he stopped short and transfixed the uchess with a glare which made everyone feel un- mifortable. “What makes you think we want to hear about Gilbert d Jerusalem? It’s nothing to do with that. But,” he mt on in a gentler tone, “ you will agree that if one of t family were to be pilled at the Jockey, especially dbert, whose father was chairman for ten years, it would | 4 pretty serious matter. What can you expect, my ‘ar, it’s got em on the raw, those fellows; they’re all er it. I don’t blame them, either; personally, you know it I have no racial prejudice, all that sort of thing seems Me out of date, and I do claim to move with the times; t damn it all, when one goes by the name of ‘ Marquis ‘Saint-Loup’ one isn’t a Dreyfusard; what more can 321 U | | | | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST 29 I say! M. de Guermantes uttered the words: “When on goes by the name of Marquis de Saint-Loup,” with som emphasis. He knew very well that it was a far greate thing to go by that of Duc de Guermantes. But if his sell esteem had a tendency to exaggerate if anything th superiority of the title Duc de Guermantes over all other it was perhaps not so much the rules of good taste as th laws of imagination that urged him thus to attenuate 1 Each of us sees in the brightest colours what he sees at distance, what he sees in other people. For the generi laws which govern perspective in imagination apply ju as much to dukes as to ordinary mortals. And not on the laws of imagination, but those of speech. Now, eith¢ of two laws of speech may apply here, one being thi which makes us express ourselves like others of our met tal category and not of our caste. Under this law M. ¢ Guermantes might be, in his choice of expressions, eve when he wished to talk about the nobility, indebted to tl humblest little tradesman, who would have said: “‘ Wh¢ one goes by the name of Duc de Guermantes,” where an educated man, a Swann, a Legrandin would not ha said it. A duke may write novels worthy of a grocer, evé about life in high society, titles and pedigrees being of 1 help to him there, and the epithet “ aristocratic” earned by the writings of a plebeian. Who had been, this instance, the inferior from whom M. de Guermant had picked up “when one goes by the name”, he hi probably not the least idea. But another law of spee is that, from time to time, as there appear and then vani diseases of which nothing more is ever heard, there cor into being, no one knows how, spontaneously perhaps 322 t ! f ie me —- = THE GUERMANTES WAY yy an accident like that which introduced into France a certain weed from America, the seeds of which, caught ‘in the wool of a travelling rug, fell on a railway embank- nent, forms of speech which one hears in the same decade m the lips of people who have not in any way combined ogether to use them. So, just as in a certain year I heard 3loch say, referring to himself, that “the most charming seople, the most brilliant, the best known, the most ex- sive had discovered that there was only one man in ’aris whom they felt to be intelligent, pleasant, whom ny could not do without—namely Bloch,” and heard he same phrase used by countless other young men who id not know him and varied it only by substituting their wn names for his, so I was often to hear this “when ne goes by the name”, “What can one expect,” the Duke went on, “ with the wfluence he’s come under; it’s easy to understand.” “Still it is rather comic,” suggested the Duchess, “ when ou think of his mother’s attitude, how she bores us to tars with her Patrie Francaise, morning, noon and night.” “Yes, but there’s not only his mother to be thought of, du can’t humbug us like that. There’s a damsel, too, a y-by-night of the worst type; she has far more influence ver him than his mother, and she happens to be a com- itriot of Master Dreyfus. She has passed on her state of ind to Robert.” You may not have heard, Duke, that there is a new ord to describe that sort of mind,” said the librarian, ho was Secretary to the Antirevisionist Committee. They say ‘ mentality ’, It means exactly the same thing, wt it has this advantage that nobody knows what wre talking about. It is the very latest expression 323 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | just now, the ‘last word’ as people say.” Meanwhile having heard Bloch’s name, he was watching him questio M. de Norpois with misgivings which aroused other) as strong though of a different order in the Mari Trembling before the librarian, and always acting th anti-Dreyfusard in his presence, she dreaded what hy would say were he to find out that she had asked to he, house a Jew more or less affiliated to the “ Syndicate” “Indeed,” said the Duke, “‘ mentality’, you say; ~ must make a note of that; I shall use it some day.” Thi was no figure of speech, the Duke having a little pocket book filled with such “ references ” which he used to con sult before dinner-parties. “I like ‘ mentality’. There ar a lot of new words like that which people suddenly ‘ using, but they never last. I read somewhere the othe day that some writer was ‘ talentuous’. You may perhap, know what it means; I don’t. And since then I’ve neve come across the word again.” “But ‘mentality’ is more widely used than ‘ talentu| ous ’,” the historian of the Fronde made his way into t conversation. “I am on a Committee at the Ministry ¢ Education at which I have heard it used several times, a well as at my Club, the Volney, and indeed at dinner a M. Emile Ollivier’s.” | “T, who have not the honour to belong to the Ministr| of Education,” replied the Duke with a feigned humili l but with a vanity so intense that his lips could not refrai from curving in a smile, nor his eyes from casting roun) his audience a glance sparkling with joy, the ironical scor| in which made the poor historian blush, “I who ha not the honour to belong to the Ministry of Education, he repeated, relishing the sound of his words, “ nor to th 324 — Sate ee THE GUERMANTES WAY folney Club (my only clubs are the Union and the Jockey you aren’t in the Jockey, I think, sir?” he asked the ‘istorian, who, blushing a still deeper red, scenting an asult and failing to understand it, began to tremble in very limb.) “I, who am not even invited to dine with ‘A. Emile @llivier I must confess that I had never heard mentality’. I’m sure you’re in the same boat, Argen- ourt. “You know,” he went on, “ why they can’t produce the ‘roofs of Dreyfus’s guilt. Apparently it’s because the War Minister’s wife was his mistress, that’s what people are aying.” “Ah! I thought it was the Prime Minister’s wife,” said if. ee oot “1 think you’re all equally tiresome about this wretched ase,’ ’ said the Duchesse de Guermantes, who, in the social ohere, was always anxious to shew that she did not allow erself to be led by anyone. “ It can’t make any difference 3 me, so far as the Jews are concerned, for the simple sason that I don’t know any of them, and I intend to 2main in that state of blissful ignorance. But on the other and I do think it perfectly intolerable that just because 1ey’re supposed to hold ‘sound’ views and don’t deal ith Jewish tradesmen, or have ‘Down with the Jews’ | on their sunshades, we should have a swarm of Yurands and Dubois and so forth, women we should ever have known but for this business, forced down our wroats by Marie-Aynard or Victurnienne. I went to see Tarie-Aynard a couple of days ago. It used to be so nice tere. Nowadays one finds all the people one has spent ae’s life trying to avoid, on the pretext that they’re jainst Dreyfus, and others of whom you have no idea 325 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST who they can be.” | “No; it was the War Minister’s wife; at least, that’s th bedside rumour,” went on the Duke, who liked to flavo his conversation with certain expressions which h imagined to be of the old school. “ Personally, of cours¢ as everyone knows, I take just the opposite view to m' cousin Gilbert. I am not feudal like him, I would g about with a negro if he was a friend of mine, and shouldn’t care two straws what anybody thought; sti) after all you will agree with me that when one goes b) the name of Saint-Loup one doesn’t amuse oneself b running clean against the rails of public opinion, which ha more sense than Voltaire or even my nephew. Nor doe! one go in for what I may be allowed to call these acrobatic of conscience a week before one comes up for a cluk It is a bit stiff, really! No, it is probably that little wence) of his that has put him on his high horse. I expect sh’ told him that he would be classed among the ‘ intellec tuals ’. The intellectuals, they’re the very cream of thos) gentry. It’s given rise, tig the Weave to a rather amusin| pun, though a very naughty one.’ | And ae Duke murmured, lowering his voice, for hi wife’s and M. d’Argencourt’s benefit, “Mater Semita, which had already made its way into the Jockey Clul for, of all the flying seeds in the world, that to which ar attached the most solid wings, enabling it to be dis seminated at the greatest distance from its parent branel is still a joke. | “We might ask this gentleman, who has a nerudit| air, to explain it to us,” he went on, indicating the his torian. “But it is better not to repeat it, especially a there’s not a vestige of truth in the suggestion. I am ne 326 - feat + } “> THE GUERMANTES WAY so ambitious as my cousin Mirepoix, who claims that she san trace the descent of her family before Christ to the Tribe of Levi, and I will undertake to prove that there ‘as never been a drop of Jewish blood in our family. Still ‘here is no good in our shutting our eyes to the fact, you nay be sure that my dear nephew’s highly original views ire liable to make a considerable stir at Landerneau. ispecially as Fezensac is ill just now, and Duras will be cunning the election; you know how he likes to make quisances,” concluded the Duke, who had never succeeded id learning the exact meaning of certain phrases, and sup- vosed “* making nuisances ” to mean “ making difficulties ”, Bloch tried to pin M. de Norpois down on Colonel ?icquart. _ “There can be no two opinions; ” replied M. de Nor- hois, “his evidence had to be taken. I am well aware ‘hat, by maintaining this attitude, I have drawn screams ‘f protest from more than one of my colleagues, but ta ay mind the Government were bound to let the Colonel ‘peak. One can’t dance lightly out of a blind alley like hat, or if one does there’s always the risk of falling into a itch. As for the officer himself, his statement gave one, at ‘he first hearing, a most excellent impression. When one aw him, looking so well in that smart Chasseur uniform, ‘ome into court and relate in a perfectly simple and frank one what he had seen and what he had deduced, and say: ‘On my honor as a soldier’” (here M. de Norpois’s loice shook with a faint patriotic throb) “ ‘such is my oviction,’ it is impossible to deny that the impression e made was profound.” _“ There; he is a Dreyfusard, there’s not the least doubt iE it,” thought Bloch, 327 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “ But where he entirely forfeited all the sympathy tha he had managed to attract was when he was confronter with the registrar, Gribelin. When one heard that ok public servant, a man who had only one answer to make; (here M. de Norpois began to accentuate his words wit) the energy of his sincere convictions) “ when one listener to him, when one saw him look his superior officer in th face, not afraid to hold his head up to him, and say ti him in a tone that admitted of no response: ‘ Colonel sir, you know very well that I have never told a lie, a know that at this moment, as always, I am speaking th: y truth,’ the wind changed; M. Picquart might move heave1 and earth at the subsequent hearings; he made a complet fiasco.” “No; evidently he’s an anti-Dreyfusard; it’s quite ob vious,” said Bloch to himself. “ But if he considers Pic’ quart a traitor and a liar, how can he take his revelation: seriously, and quote them as if he found them ae | and believed them to be sincere. And if, on the othe hand, he sees in him an honest man easing his conscience how can he suppose him to have been lying when he wa‘ confronted with Gribelin? ” | “In any case, if this man Dreyfus is innocent,” the Duchess broke in, “he hasn’t done much to prove it What idiotic, raving letters he writes from that island. ] don’t know whether M. Esterhazy is any better, but he does shew some skill in his choice of words, a different tone altogether. That can’t be very pleasant for the sup: porters of M. Dreyfus. What a pity for them there’s ne way of exchanging innocents.” Everybody laughed. “ You heard what Oriane said?” the Duc de Guermantes in quired eagerly of Mme. de Villeparisis. “ Yes; I think it | -—— 328 THE GUERMANTES WAY qost amusing.” This was not enough for the Duke. / Well, I don’t know, I can’t say that I thought it amus- ag; or rather it doesn’t make the slightest difference to me yhether a thing is amusing or not. I don’t care about wit.” M. d’Argencourt protested. “It is probably be- vause I’ve been a Member of Parliament, where I have istened to brilliant speeches that meant absolutely noth- ag. I learned there to value, more than anything, logic. That’s probably why they didn’t elect me again. Amusing hhings leave me cold.” “ Basin, don’t play the heavy father wke that, my child, you know quite well that no one ad- aires wit more than you do.” “Please let me finish. It 3 just because I am unmoved by a certain type of humour, hat I am often struck by my wife’s wit. For you will find t based, as a rule, upon sound observation. She reasons ike a man; she states her case like a writer.” , Possibly the explanation of M. de Norpois’s speaking a this way to Bloch, as though they had been in agree- ment, may have lain in the fact that he himself was so ‘een an anti-Dreyfusard that, finding the Government sot anti-Dreyfusard enough, he was its enemy Just as auch as the Dreyfusards. Perhaps because the object to which he devoted himself in politics was something more rofound, situated on another plane, from which Drey- usism appeared as an unimportant modality which did sot deserve the attention of a patriot interested in large uestions of foreign policy. Perhaps, rather, because the aaxims of his political wisdom being applicable only to uestions of form, of procedure, of expediency, they were ‘8 powerless to solve questions of fact as in philosophy wure logic is powerless to tackle the problems of existence; rt else because that very wisdom made him see danger in 329 — REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | handling such subjects and so, in his caution, he pei to speak only of minor incidents. But where Bloch madi a mistake was in thinking that M. de Norpois, even hac he been less cautious by nature and of a less exclusively formal cast of mind, could (supposing he would) have told him the truth as to the part played by Henry Picquart or du Paty de Clam, or as to any of the differen aspects of the case. The truth, indeed, as to all these mat. ters Bloch could not doubt that M. de Norpois knew. How could he fail to know it seeing that he was a friend of all the Ministers? Naturally, Bloch thought that the truth in politics could be approximately reconstructed a the most luminous minds, but he imagined, like the man in the street, that it resided permanently, beyond the reach of argument and in a material form, in the secret files of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minis- ter, who imparted it to their Cabinet. Now, even when a political truth does take the form of written documents, it is seldom that these have any more value than a radio. graphic plate on which the layman imagines that the patient’s disease is inscribed in so many words, when, a a matter of fact, the plate furnishes simply one piece of material for study, to be combined with a number of others, which the doctor’s reasoning powers will take into consideration as a whole and upon them found his diag- nosis. So, too, the truth in politics, when one goes to well-informed men and imagines that one is about to grasp it, eludes one. Indeed, later on (to confine ourselves to the Dreyfus case), when so startling an event occurred’ as Henry’s confession, followed by his suicide, this fact’ was at once interpreted in opposite ways by the Drey- fusard Ministers, and by Cavaignac and Cuignet who had 330 Co eee pasa A J ip 4 ROR Be THE GUERMANTES WAY chemselves made the discovery of the forgery and con- jucted the examination; still more so among the Drey- fusard Ministers themselves, men of the same shade of Dreyfusism, judging not only from the same documents nut in the same spirit, the part played by Henry was ex- plained in two entirely different ways, one set seeing in him an accomplice of Esterhazy, the others assigning that part to du Paty de Clam, thus rallying in support of a theory of their opponent Cuignet and in complete oppo- sition to their supporter Reinach. All that Bloch could elicit from M. de Norpois was that if it were true that the Chief of Staff, M. de Boisdeffre, had had a secret com- munication sent to M. Rochefort, it was evident that a singularly regrettable irregularity had occurred. _ “You may be quite sure that the War Minister must (in petto at any rate) be consigning his Chief of Staff to the infernal powers. An official disclaimer would not have been (to my mind) a work of supererogation. But the War Minister expresses himself very bluntly on the matter inter pocula. There are certain subjects, more- ver, about which it is highly imprudent to create an agitation over which one cannot retain control afterwards.” _ “But those documents are obviously forged,” put in ‘Bloch. M. de Norpois made no reply to this, but announced that he did not approve of the manifestations that were being made by Prince Henri d’Orléans: “Besides, they can only ruffle the calm of the pre- ‘torium, and encourage agitations which, looked at from either point of view, would be deplorable. Certainly we Bisse put a stop to the anti-militarist conspiracy, but we : a possibly tolerate, either, a brawl encouraged by 331 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAyT those elements on the Right who instead of serving th patriotic ideal themselves are hoping to make it sery them. Heaven be praised, France is not a South America Republic, and the need has not yet been felt here fc. a military pronunciamento.” Bloch could not get him to speak on the question Dreyfus’s guilt, nor would he utter any forecast as to A judgment in the civil trial then proceeding. On the othe hand, M. de Norpois seemed only too ready to indicate th consequences of this judgment. | “If it is a conviction,” he said, “it will probably b quashed, for it is seldom that, in a case where | has been such a number of witnesses, there is not som flaw in the procedure which counsel can raise on appea To return to Prince Henri’s outburst, I greatly doub whether it has met with his father’s approval.” “You think Chartres is for Dreyfus?” asked thi Duchess with a smile, her eyes rounded, her cheeks bright her nose buried in her plate, her whole manner delicioush scandalised, | “Not at all; I meant only that there runs through thr whole family, on that side, a political sense which we havi seen, in the admirable Princesse Clémentine, carried tc its highest power, and which her son, Prince Ferdinand to his bosom.” ‘al “He would have preferred a private soldier,” mur- mured Mme. de Guermantes, who often met the Bul- garian monarch at dinner at the Prince de Joinville’s, and had said to him once, when he asked if she was not envi- ous: “ Yes, Sir, of your bracelets.” | 332 THE GUERMANTES WAY “You aren’t going to Mme. de Sagan’s ball this eve- ing? ” M. de Norpois asked Mme. de Villeparisis, to cut ‘hort his conversation with Bloch. My friend had not ‘ailed to interest the Ambassador, who told us afterwards, aot without a quaint simplicity, thinking no doubt of the ‘races that survived in Bloch’s speech of the neo-Homeric manner which he had on the whole outgrown: “He is rather amusing, with that way of speaking, a trifle old ‘ashioned, a trifle solemn. You expect him to come out with ‘The Learned Sisters’, like Lamartine or Jean- Baptiste Rousseau. It has become quite uncommon in the youth of the present day, as it was indeed in the generation before them. We ourselves were inclined to be vomantic.” But however exceptional his companion may aave seemed to him, M. de Norpois decided that the con- yersation had lasted long enough. _ “No, sir, I don’t go to balls any more,” she replied with a iariaiag grandmotherly smile. “ You’re going, all of you, I suppose? You're the right age for that sort of thing,” she added, embracing in a comprehensive glance Me de Chatellerault, his friend and Bloch. “ Still, I was asked, ” she went on, pretending, just for fun, to he flat- tered by the distinction. “In fact, they came specially jo ask me.” (“ They” being the Princesse de Sagan.) _ “T haven’t had a card,” said Bloch, thinking that Mme. dle Villeparisis would at once offer to procure him one, and that Mme. de Sagan would be glad to see at her ball the friend of a woman whom she had called in person to nvite. _ The Marquise made no reply, and Bloch did not press the point, for he had another, more serious matter to liscuss with her, and, with that in view, had already asked 333 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST her whether he might call again in a couple of days. Hay ing heard the two young men say that they had both jus resigned from the Rue Royale Club, which was letting i every Tom, Dick and Harry, he wished to ask Mme. d Villeparisis to arrange for his election there. ! “Aren’t they rather bad form, rather stuck-up snob: these Sagans?” he inquired in a tone of sarcasm. } “ Not at all, they’re the best we can do for you in the line,” M. d’Argencourt, who adopted all the catch-word of Parisian society, assured him. | “Then,” said Bloch, still half in irony, “I suppose it’ one of the solemnities, the great social fixtures of | season.” : Mme. de Villeparisis turned merrily to Mme. de Guer| mantes. | “ Tell us, is it a great social solemnity, Mme. de “ ball?” , “It’s no good asking me,” answered the Duchess, “ | have never yet succeeded in finding out what a socia solemnity is. Besides, society isn’t my strong point.” | “Indeed; I thought it was just the other way,” sai Bloch, who supposed Mme. de Guermantes to be speak ing seriously. | He continued, to the desperation of M. de Norpois, ti ply him with questions about the Dreyfus case. The Am’ bassador declared that, looking at it from outside, he go the impression fram du Paty de Clam of a somewha cloudy brain, which had perhaps not been very happil chosen to conduct that delicate operation, which require so much coolness and discernment, a judicial inquiry. “I know that the Socialist Party are crying aloud fo his head on a charger, as well as for the immediate releas 334 —— —— = ela THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘tthe prisoner from the Devil’s Isle. But I think that we ‘re not yet reduced to the necessity of passing the Caudine vorks of MM. Gérault-Richard and Company. So far, ie whole case has been an utter mystery, I don’t say aat on one side just as much as on the other there has lot been some pretty dirty work to be hushed up. That attain of your client’s more or less disinterested pro- sectors may have the best intentions I will not attempt deny, but you know that heaven is paved with such aings,” he added, with a look of great subtlety. “ It is ential that the Government should give the impression jat they are not in the hands of the factions of the Left, nd that they are not going to surrender themselves, ‘ound hand and foot, at the demand of some pretorian uard or other, which, believe me, is not the same thing 3 the Army. It stands to reason that, should any fread ence come to light, a new trial would be ordered. And ‘hat follows from that? Obviously, that to demand a ew trial is to force an open door. When the day comes, 1e Government will speak with no uncertain voice or ‘ill let fall into abeyance what is their essential preroga- ve. Cock and bull stories will no longer be enough. We lust appoint judges to try Dreyfus. And that will be an asy matter because, although we have acquired the fabit, in our sweet France, where we love to belittle urselves, of thinking or letting it be thought that, in order » hear the words Truth and Justice,-it is necessary to foss the Channel, which is very often only a round- bout way of reaching the Spree, there are judges to be ound outside Berlin. But once the machinery of Govern- tent has been set in motion, will you have ears for the dice of authority? When it ie you perform your duty 335 | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | as a citizen will you have ears for its voice, will you tak) your stand in the ranks of law and order? When its Pa triotic appeal sounds, will you have the wisdom not ti turn a deaf ear but to answer: ‘ Present!’?” { M. de Norpois put these questions to Bloch with , vehemence which, while it alarmed my friend, flatterei him also; for the Ambassador spoke to him with the ai of one addressing a whole party, questioned him as thoug he had been in the confidence of that party and might b held responsible for the decisions which it would adopt “Should you fail to disarm,” M. de Norpois went or without waiting for Bloch’s collective answer, “ shou you, before even the ink had dried on the decree orderin‘ the fresh trial of the case, obeying it matters not wha insidious word of command, fail, I say, to disarm, ani band yourselves, rather, in a sterile Opposition whic’ seems to some minds the ultima ratio of policy, should yo retire to your tents and burn your boats, you would b doing so to your own damnation, Are you the prisoner of those who foment disorder? Have you given ther) pledges?” Bloch was in doubt how to answer. M. d Norpois gave him no time. “If the negative be true, a I should like to think, and if you have a little of wha seems to me to be lamentably lacking in certain of you leaders and your friends, namely political sense, then, oO the day when the Criminal Court assembles, if you do ne allow yourselves to be dragooned by the fishers in trouble waters, you will have won your battle. I do not guarante that the whole of the General Staff is going to get awa’ unscathed, but it will be so much to the good if some ¢ them at least can save their faces without setting th heather on fire. 3 —_—_ — —§— Ss 336 THE GUERMANTES WAY “Tt stands to reason, moreover, that it is with the Government that it rests to pronounce judgment, and to ‘lose the list—already too long—of unpunished crimes, iot certainly at the bidding of Socialist agitators, nor yet af any obscure military mouthpiece,” he added, looking loch boldly in the face, perhaps with the instinct that eads all Conservatives to establish support for themselves nm the enemy’s camp. “Government action is not to be lictated by the highest bidder, from wherever the bid nay come. The Government are not, thank heaven, under the orders of Colonel Driant, nor, at the other end of he scale, under M. Clemenceau’s. We must curb the pro- essional agitators and prevent them from raising their teads again. France, the vast majority here in France, lesires only to be allowed to work in orderly conditions. As to that, there can be no question whatever. But we aust not be afraid to enlighten public opinion; and if a ew sheep, of the kind our friend Rabelais knew so well, hould dash headlong into the water, it would be as well © point out to them that the water in question was roubled, that it had been troubled deliberately by an gency not within our borders, in order to conceal the angers lurking in its depths. And the Government ought Ot to give the impression that they are emerging from a passivity in self-defence when they exercise the right rhich is essentially their own, I mean that of setting the theels of justice in motion. The Government will accept Il your suggestions. If it is proved that there has been judicial error, they can be sure of an overwhelming lajority which would give them room to act with ‘eedom.” “You, sir,” said Bloch, turning to M. d’Argencourt, to ; 337 v REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST whom he had been made known, with the rest of th party, on that gentleman’s arrival, “you are a Drey fusard, of course; they all are, abroad.” | “It is a question that concerns only the French them selves, don’t you think?” replied M. d’Argencourt wit that peculiar form of insolence which consists in ascribin' to the other person an opinion which one must, obviously know that he does not hold since he has just expresse one directly its opposite. | Bloch coloured; M. d’Argencourt smiled, looking roti the room, and if this smile, so long as it was directed the rest of the company, was charged with malice ( Bloch’s expense, it became tempered with cordiality whe finally it came to rest on the face of my friend, so as t deprive him of any excuse for annoyance at the wom which he had heard uttered, though those words re mained just as cruel. Mme. de Guermantes muri | something to M. d’Argencourt which I could not heai but which must have referred to Bloch’s religion, for ther flitted at that moment over the face of the Duchess th | expression to which one’s fear of being noticed by th person of whom one is speaking gives a certain hesitanc’ and unreality, while there is blended with it the inquisitive’ malicious amusement inspired in one by a group of huma beings to which one feels oneself to be fundamentally ie To retrieve himself, Bloch turned to the Duc de Chatel lerault. “ You, sir, as a Frenchman, you must be awar that people abroad are all Dreyfusards, although every one pretends that in France we never know what is goin on abroad. Anyhow, I know I can talk freely to you Saint-Loup told me so.” But the young Duke, who fe that every one was turning against Bloch, and was | 338 eit 23 THE GUERMANTES WAY soward as people often are in society, employing a mor- dant and precious form of wit which he seemed, by a sort of collateral atavism, to have inherited from M. de harlus, replied: “ You must not ask me, sir, to discuss the Dreyfus case with you; it is a subject which, on principle, { mever mention except to Japhetics.” Everyone smiled, xcept Bloch, not that he was not himself in the habit of making scathing references to his Jewish origin, to that ide of his ancestry which came from somewhere near jinai. But instead of one of these epigrams (doubtless yecause he had not one ready) the operation of the in- ernal machine brought to Bloch’s lips something quite fifferent. And we caught only: “But how on earth did you know? Who told you?” as though he had been the jon of a convict. Whereas, given his name, which had not wxactly a Christian sound, and his face, his surprise argued certain simplicity of mind. , What M. de Norpois had said not having completely jatisfied him, he went up to the librarian and asked him whether Mme. de Villeparisis did not sometimes have in her aouse M. du Paty de Clam or M. Joseph Reinach. The ibrarian made no reply; he was a Nationalist, and never teased preaching to the Marquise that the social revolu- fon might break out at any moment, and that she ought o shew more caution in the choice of her friends. He tsked himself whether Bloch might not be a secret emis- Jary of the Syndicate, come to collect information, and ent off at once to repeat to Mme. de Villeparisis the juestions that Bloch had put to him. She decided that, it the best, he was ill-bred and might be in a position to tompromise M. de Norpois. Also, she wished to give atisfaction to the librarian, the only person of whom she 339 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST went in fear, by whom she was being indoctrinated, thou without any marked success (every morning he reé her M. Judet’s article in the Petit Journal). She decide therefore, to make it plain to Bloch that he need not con to the house again, and had no difficulty in finding, amor her social repertory, the scene by which a great lad shews anyone her door, a scene which does not in ar way involve the raised finger and blazing eyes thi people imagine. As Bloch came up to her to say good-by buried in her deep armchair, she seemed only hal awakened from a vague somnolence. Her sunken ey‘ gleamed with only the feeble though charming light of pair of pearls. Bloch’s farewell, barely pencilling on tl Marquise’s face a languid smile, drew from her not word, nor did she offer him her hand. This scene le Bloch in utter bewilderment, but as he was surround by a circle of spectators he felt that it could not be pre longed without disadvantage to himself, and, to force tk Marquise, the hand which she had made no effort to tak he himself thrust out at her. Mme. de Villeparisis w: startled. But doubtless, while still bent upon giving a immediate satisfaction to the librarian and the anti-Drey fusard clan, she wished at the same time to provide for tl future, and so contented herself with letting her eyelic droop over her closing eyes. “I believe she’s asleep,” said Bloch to the libraria who, feeling that he had the support of the Marquise, aj sumed an indignant air. “Good-bye, madame,” shout Bloch. | The old lady made the slight movement with her li of a dying woman who wants to open her mouth bi whose eye can no longer recognise people. Then st 340 THE GUERMANTES WAY irned, overflowing with a restored vitality, to M. d’Argen- purt, while Bloch left the room, convinced that she must e “soft” in the head. Full of curiosity and anxious to ave more light thrown upon so strange an incident, he ime to see her again a few days later. She received him . the most friendly fashion, because she was a good- atured woman, because the librarian was not there, be- use she had in mind the little play which Bloch was ding to produce for her, and finally because she had sted once and for all the little scene of the indignant lady iat she had wished to act, a scene that had been uni- ‘rsally admired and discussed the same evening in vari- is drawing-rooms, but in a version which had already ased to bear any resemblance to the truth. “You were speaking just now of the Seven Princesses, uchess; you know (not that it’s anything to be proud of) at the author of that—what shall I call it?—that pro- |ction is a compatriot of mine,” said M. d’Argencourt ‘th a fine scorn blended with satisfaction at knowing ore than anyone else in the room about the author of a ork which had been under discussion. “Yes, he’s a tlgian, by nationality,” he went on. “Indeed! No, we don’t accuse you of any responsibility t the Seven Princesses. F ortunately for yourself and ur compatriots you are not like the author of that ab- tdity. I know several charming Belgians, yourself, your ing, who is inclined to be shy, but full of wit, my Ligne usins, and heaps of others, but you, I am thankful to y, do not speak the same language as the author of the ven Princesses. Besides, if you want to know, it’s not wth talking about, because really there is absolutely thing in it. You know the sort of people who are always 341 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST trying to seem obscure, and even plan to make themselve: ridiculous to conceal the fact that they have not an idez in their heads. If there was anything behind it all, I ma tell you that I’m not in the least afraid of a little daring,’ she added in a serious tone, “ provided that there is somi idea in it. I don’t know if you’ve seen Borelli’s piec Some people seem to have been shocked by it, but I mus say, even if they stone me through the streets for sayin, it,” she went on, without stopping to think that she ra no very great risk of such a punishment, “I found i immensely interesting. But the Seven Princesses! It’s a very well, one of them having a fondness for my nephew I cannot carry family feeling quite .. .” The Duchess broke off abruptly, for a lady came 1 who was the Comtesse de Marsantes, Robert’s mothe} Mme. de Marsantes was regarded in the Faubourg Sain Germain as a superior being, of a goodness, a resignatio that were positively angelic. So I had been told, and ha had no particular reason to feel surprised, not knowi at the same time that she was the sister of the Duc de Guei mantes. Later, I have always been taken aback, whenevt I have learned that such women, melancholy, pure, vi timised, venerated like the ideal forms of saints in chure windows, had flowered from the same genealogical ste as brothers brutal debauched and vile. Brothers and si ters, when they are closely alike im features as were tl Duc de Guermantes and Mme. de Marsantes, ought felt) to have a single intellect in common, the same heat as a person would have who might vary between got and evil moods but in whom one could not, for all thé expect to find a vast breadth of outlook if he had a narre mind, or a sublime abnegation if his heart was hard. 342 THE GUERMANTES WAY Mme. de Marsantes attended Brunetiére’s lectures. She ‘ascinated the Faubourg Saint-Germain and, by her saintly ife, edified it as well. But the morphological link of hand- some nose and piercing gaze led one, nevertheless, to clas- ify Mme. de Marsantes in the same intellectual and moral amily as her brother the Duke. I could not believe that the mere fact of her being a woman, and perhaps those %f her having had an unhappy life and won everyone’s iympathy could make a person be so different from the rest of her family, as in the old romances, where all the firtues and graces are combined in the sister of wild and lawless brothers. It seemed to me that nature, less znconventional than the old poets, must make use almost *xclusively of the elements common to the family, and I was unable to credit her with enough power of invention (0 construct, out of materials analogous to those that com- posed a fool and clod, a lofty mind without the least train of clownishness, a saint unsoiled by any brutality. Mme. de Marsantes was wearing a gown of white surah smbroidered with large palms, on which stood out flowers af a different material, these being black. This was be- ause, three weeks earlier, she had lost her cousin, M. de Montmorency, a bereavement which did not prevent her from paying calls or even from going to small dinners, mut always in mourning. She was a great lady. Atavism wad filled her with.the frivolity of generations of life t court, with all the superficial, rigorous duties that that mplies. Mme. de Marsantes had not had the strength if character to regret for any length of time the death of ter father and mother, but she would not for anything in he world have appeared in colours in the month follow- ag that of a cousin. She was more than pleasant to me, 343 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST both because I was Robert’s friend and because I did no move in the same world as he. This pleasantness was ac- companied by a pretence of shyness, by that sort of inter- mittent withdrawal of the voice, the eyes, the mind whic a woman draws back to her like a skirt that has indis creetly spread, so as not to take up too much room, to remain stiff and erect even in her suppleness, as a good upbringing teaches. A good upbringing which must not however, be taken too literally, many of these ladies pass- ing very swiftly into a complete dissolution of morals without ever losing the almost childlike correctness of their manners. Mme. de Marsantes was a trifle irritating in conversation since, whenever she had occasion to speak of a plebeian, as for instance Bergotte or Elstir, she would say, isolating the word, giving it its full value, intoning it on two different notes with a modulation peculiar to the Guermantes: “I have had the honour, the great hon-out of meeting Monsieur Bergotte,” or “of making the ae quaintance of Monsieur Elstir,” whether that her hearers might marvel at her humility or from the same tendency that Mme. de Guermantes shewed to revert to the use ol obsolete forms, as a protest against the slovenly usages of the present day, in which people never professed them: selves sufficiently “honored”. Whichever of these was the true reason, one felt that when Mme. de Marsantes said: “I have had the honour, the great hon-our,” she felt she was playing an important part and shewing that she could take in the names of distinguished men as she woul¢ have welcomed the men themselves at her home in th country, had they happened to be in the neighbourhood On the other hand, as her family connexion was numerous as she was devoted to all her relatives, as, slow in speeck 344 THE GUERMANTES WAY ind fond of explaining things at length, she was always ying to make clear the exact degree of kinship, she found ierself (without any desire to create an effect and without veally caring to talk about anyone except touching peas- ints and sublime gamekeepers) referring incessantly to ill the mediatised houses in Europe, a failing which people ess brilliantly connected than herself could not forgive, and, if they were at all intellectual, derided as a sign of stupidity. | In the country, Mme. de Marsantes was adored for the zood that she did, but principally because the purity of a strain of blood into which for many generations there had lowed only what was greatest in the history of France aad taken from her manner everything that the lower orders call “ manners”, and had given her a perfect sim- dlicity. She never shrank from kissing a poor woman who vas in trouble, and would tell her to come up to the castle ‘or a cartload of wood. She was, people said, the perfect christian. She was determined to find an immensely rich wife for Robert. Being a great lady means playing the great lady, that is to say, to a certain extent, playing at simplicity. It is a pastime which costs an extremely high orice, all the more because simplicity charms people only on condition that they know that you are not bound to live simply, that is to say that you are very rich. Some one said to me afterwards, when I had told him of my meeting her: “ You saw af aatios that she must have deen lovely as a young woman.” But true beauty is so ndividual, so novel always, that one does not recognize ‘tas beauty. I said to myself this afternoon only that she nad a tiny nose, very blue eyes, a long neck and a sad expression, 345 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “Listen,” said Mme. de Villeparisis to the Duchesse de Guermantes, “I’m expecting a woman at any moment whom you don’t wish to know. I thought I’ld better warn: you, to avoid any unpleasantness. But you needn’t be afraid, I shall never have her here again, only I was obliged to let her come to-day. It’s Swann’s wife.” Mme. Swann, seeing the dimensions that the Dreyfus case had begun to assume, and fearing that her husband’s racial origin might be used against herself, had besought him never again to allude to the prisoner’s innocence, When he was not present she went farther and used to profess the most ardent Nationalism; in doing which she was only following the example of Mme. Verdurin, in whom a middle-class anti-semitism, latent hitherto, had awakened and grown to a positive fury. Mme. Swann had won by this attitude the privilege of membership in several of the women’s leagues that were beginning to be formed in’ anti-semitic society, and had succeeded in making friends with various members of the aristocracy. It may seem strange that, so far from following their example, the Duchesse de Guermantes, so close a friend of Swann, had on the contrary always resisted his desire, which he had not concealed from her, to introduce to her his wife. But we shall see in due course that this arose from the’ peculiar nature of the Duchess, who held that she was not “bound to” do things, and laid down with despotic force what had been decided by her social “ free will”, which was extremely arbitrary. : “Thank you for telling me,” said the Duchess. “It would indeed be most unpleasant. But as I know her by sight I shall be able to get away in time.” i “I assure you, Oriane, she is really quite nice; an 346 Riemer cc s THE GUERMANTES WAY excellent woman,” said Mme. de Marsantes. _ “TJ have no doubt she is, but I feel no need to assure myself of it.” | “Have you been invited to Lady Israels’s?”” Mme de Villeparisis asked the Duchess, to change the Boe ea “Why, thank heaven, I don’t ie the woman,” re- plied Mme. de Guermantes. “ You must ask an ee nard. She knows her. I never could make out why.” _ “TI did indeed know her at one time,” said Mme. de Marsantes. “I confess my faults. But I have decided not to know her any more. It seems she’s one of the very worst of them, and makes no attempt to conceal it. Be- sides, we have all been too trusting, too hospitable. I shall never go near anyone of that race again. While we had old friends, country cousins, people of our own flesh and blood on whom we shut our doors, we threw them open to Jews. And now we see what thanks we get from them. But I’ve no right to speak; I have an adorable son, and, like a young ae be says and does all the maddest things you can imagine,” she went on, having caught some allusion by M. @ Argencourt to Robert. “ But, talk- ing of Robert, haven’t you seen him?” she asked Mme. de Villeparisis; “being Saturday, I thought he’ld be com- Ing to Paris on ae and in that case he would, be sure to pay you a visit.” _ As a matter of fact Mme. de Marsantes thought that her son would not obtain leave that week; but knowing that, even if he did, he would never ret of coming to see Mme. de Villeparisis, she hoped, by making herself appear to have expected to find him in the room, to procure his forgiveness from her susceptible aunt for all the visits that he had failed to pay her. 347 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “Robert here! But I have never had a single word from him; I don’t think I’ve seen him since Balbec.” “He is so busy; he has so much to do,” pleaded Mme: de Marsantes. . A faint smile made Mme. de Guermantes’s eyelashes quiver as she studied the circle which, with the point of her sunshade, she was tracing on the carpet. When- ever the Duke had been too openly unfaithful to his wife, Mme. de Marsantes had always taken up the cudgels against her own brother on her sister-in-law’s behalf. The latter had a grateful and bitter memory ol this protection, and was not herself seriously shocked by Robert’s pranks. At this point the door opened again and Robert himself entered the room. “Well, talk of the Saint!” said Mme. de Guermantes, Mme. de Marsantes, who had her back to the door, had not seen her son come in. When she did catch| sight of him, her motherly bosom was convulsed with) joy, as by the beating of a wing, her body half rose from) her seat, her face quivered and she fastened on Rober eyes big with astonishment: | “What! You’ve come! How delightful! What a sur- prise! ” | “Ah! Talk of the Saint!—I see,” cried the Belgian diplomat, with a shout of laughter. “Delicious, ain’t it?” came tartly from the Duchess, who hated puns, and had ventured on this one onl with a pretence of making fun of herself. } “Good afternoon, Robert,” she said, “I believe he’s forgotten his aunt.” | They talked for a moment, probably about myself, for as Saint-Loup was leaving her to join his mother 348 TITHE GUERMANTES WAY Ime. de Guermantes turned to me: “Good afternoon; how are you?” was her greeting. She allowed to rain on me the light of her azure gaze, ssitated for a moment, unfolded and stretched towards ‘e the stem of her arm, leaned forward her body which yrang rapidly backwards like a bush that has been alled down to the ground and, on being released, re- ims to its natural position. Thus she acted under the ‘e of Saint-Loup’s eyes, which kept her under observa- on and were making frantic efforts to obtain some irther concession still from his aunt. Fearing that our myversation might fail altogether, he joined in, to stimu- ‘te it, and answered for me: ‘“He’s not very well just now, he gets rather tired; ‘think he would be a great deal better, by the way, ‘he saw you more often, for I can’t help telling you iat he admires you immensely.” “Oh, but that’s very nice of him,” said Mme. de uermantes in a deliberately casual tone, as if I had cought her her cloak. “I am most flattered.” “Look, I must go and talk to my mother for a minute; ‘ke my chair,” said Saint-Loup, thus forcing me to sit own next to his aunt. 'We are both silent. “T see you sometimes in the morning,” she said, as ough she were telling me something that I did not now, and I for my part had never seen her. “It’s so vod for one, a walk.” “Oriane,” began Mme. de Marsantes in a low tone, you said you were going on to Mme. de Saint-Ferréol’s; ould you be so very kind as to tell her not to expect to dinner, I shall stay at home now that I’ve got 349 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST Robert. And one other thing, but I hardly like to a you, if you would leave word as you pass to tell ther to send out at once for a box of the cigars Robert like ‘Corona’, they’re called. I’ve none in the house.” Robert came up to us; he had caught only the na of Mme. de Saint-Ferréol. “Who in the world is Mme. de Saint-Ferréol?” } inquired, in a surprised but decisive tone, for he affect a studied ignorance of everything to do with society. “But, my dear boy, you know quite well,” said h mother, “She’s Vermandois’s sister. It was she gave y that nice billiard table you liked so much.” “What, she’s Vermandois’s sister, I had no idea that. Really, my family are amazing,” he went on, tur ing so as to include me in the conversation and adoptir unconsciously Bloch’s intonation just as he borrowed h ideas, “they know the most unheard-of people, peop called Saint-Ferréol” (emphasising the final consona of each word) “and names like that; they go to ball they drive in victorias, they lead a fabulous existenc It’s prodigious.” Mme. de Guermantes made in her throat a sligh short, sharp sound, as of an involuntary laugh whi one chokes back, meaning thereby to shew that she pai just as much tribute as the laws of kinship impose on her to her nephew’s wit. A servant came in to s that the Prince von Faffenheim-Munsterburg-Weinig had sent word to M. de Norpois that he was waiting. — “Bring him in, sir,’ said Mme. de Villeparisis to tl old Ambassador, who started in quest of the Germa Minister. i “Stop, sir; do you think I ought to shew him tk 350 THE GUERMANTES WAY miature of the Empress Charlotte?” “Why, I’m sure he’ll be delighted,” said the Ambas- dor in a tone of conviction, and as though he were vying the fortunate Minister the favour that was in ore for him. “Oh, I know he’s very sound,’ said Mme. de Mar- ntes, “and that is so rare among foreigners. “ But ve found out all about him. He is anti-semitism per- nified.”’ The Prince’s name preserved in the boldness with uch its opening syllables were—to borrow an expres- m from music—attacked, and in the stammering repe- ion that scanned them, the impulse, the mannered mplicity, the heavy delicacies of the Teutonic race, jected like green boughs over the “heim” of dark we enamel which glowed with the mystic light of (Rhenish window behind the pale and finely wrought dings of the German eighteenth century. This name tluded, among the several names of which it was mposed, that of a little German watering-place to lich as a child I had gone with my grandmother, at e foot of a mountain honoured by the feet of Goethe, pm the vineyards of which we used to drink, at the arhof, their illustrious vintages with elaborate and morous names, like the epithets which Homer applies ‘his heroes. And so, scarcely had I heard the Prince’s me spoken than, before I had recalled the watering- ace, the name itself seemed to shrink, to grow rich ‘th humanity, to find large enough a little place in y memory to which it clung, familiar, earth to earth, cturesque, savoury, light, with something about it, 9, that was authorised, prescribed. And then, M. de 351 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST Guermantes, in explaining who the Prince ‘was, quote’ a number of his titles, and I recognised the name ( a village threaded by the river on which, every evenin’ my cure finished for the day, I used to go in a bo: amid the mosquitoes, and that of a forest so far awa! that the doctor would not allow me to make the ey cursion to it. And indeed it was comprehensible thi the suzerainty of the lord extended to the surroundi i places and associated afresh in the enumeration of h titles the names which one could read, close togethe’ upon a map. Thus beneath the visor of the Prince ¢ the Holy Roman Empire and Knight of Franconia | was the face of a dear and smiling land, on which ha’ often lingered for me the light of the six-o’clock sui that I saw, at any rate before the Prince, Rheingraf an Elector Palatine, had entered the room. For I speedi learned that the revenues which he drew from the fore’ _and river, peopled with gnomes and undines, and fro the enchanted mountain on which rose the ancient Bur that cherished memories of Luther and Lewis the Ge manic, he employed in keeping five Charron motor-car a house in Paris and one in London, a box on Monday at the Opera and another for the “ Tuesdays ” at th “Francais”. He did not seem to me, nor did he seer to regard himself as different from other men of similé fortune and age who had a less poetic origin. He ha their culture, their ideals, he was proud of his rank, bi purely on account of the advantages it conferred on hin and had now only one ambition in life, to be electe! a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Moral ani Political Sciences, which was the reason of his comin to see Mme. de Villeparisis. If he, whose wife was 352 THE GUERMANTES WAY jader of the most exclusive set in Berlin, had begged be introduced to the Marquise, it was not the result any desire on his part for her acquaintance. Devoured © years past by this ambition to be elected to the ystitute, he had unfortunately never been in a position , reckon above five the number of Academicians who emed prepared to vote for him. He knew that M. de orpois could by himself dispose of at least ten others, number which he was capable, by skillful negotiations, increasing still further. And so the Prince, who had town him in Russia when they were both there as mbassadors, had gone to see him and had done every- jing in his power to win him over. But in vain might , multiply his friendly overtures, procure for the Mar- iis Russian decorations, quote him in articles on foreign Hiitics ; he had had before him an ingrate, a man in ose eyes all these attentions appeared to count as ithing, who had not advanced the prospects of his indidature one inch, had not even promised him his m vote. No doubt M. de Norpois received him with treme politeness, indeed begged that he would not put mself out and “take the trouble to come so far out | his way,” went himself to the Prince’s residence, and en the Teutonic Knight had launched his: “I should |e immensely to be your colleague,” replied in a tone | deep emotion: “ Ah! I should be most happy!” And | doubt a simpleton, a Dr. Cottard would have said himself: “Well, here he is in my house; it was he 110 insisted on coming, because he regards me as a dre important person than himself; he tells me that would be happy to see me in the Academy; words have some meaning after all, damn it, probably if ' 353 w REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST he doesn’t offer to vote for me it is because it hasn occurred to him. He lays so much stress on my gre influence; presumably he imagines that larks drop in my mouth ready roasted, that I have all the supp I want, and that is why he doesn’t offer me his; b I have only got to get him with his back to the wa and just say to him quietly: ‘Very well, vote for will you?’ and he will be obliged to do it.” | But Prince von Faffenheim was no simpleton. He w what Dr. Cottard would have called “a fine diplomat and he knew that M. de Norpois was no less fine a 0 than himself, nor a man who would have failed to reali without needing to be told that he could confer a favo on a candidate by voting for him. The Prince, in } Embassies and as Foreign Minister, had conducted, his country’s behalf instead of, as in the present instan his own, many of those conversations in which one kno} beforehand just how far one is prepared to go and what point one will decline to commit oneself. He w not unaware that, in this diplomatic language, to ta meant to offer. And it was for this reason that | had arranged for M. de Norpois to receive the Cords of Saint Andrew. But if he had had to report to | Government the conversation which he had subsequent had with M. de Norpois, he would have stated in I dispatch: “I realised that I had gone the wrong wi to work.” For as soon as he had returned to the subj of the Institute, M. de Norpois had repeated: “TI should like nothing better; nothing could be bett for my colleagues. They ought, I consider, to feel gen inely honoured that you should have thought of the It is a really interesting candidature, a little outside o 354 THE GUERMANTES WAY dinary course. As you know, the Academy is very mventional, it takes fright at everything which has all a novel sound. Personally, I deplore this. How ten have I had occasion to say as much to my col- agues! | cannot be sure, God forgive me, that I did not en once let the word ‘hide-bound’ escape me,” he lded, in an undertone, with a scandalised smile, almost ide, as in a scene on the stage, casting at the Prince tapid, sidelong glance from his blue eyes, like a veteran tor studying the effect on his audience. “ You under- and, Prince, that I should not care to allow a per- mality so eminent as yourself to embark on a venture nich was hopeless from the start. So long as my col- agues’ ideas linger so far behind the times, I consider at the wiser course will be to abstain. But you may St assured that if I were ever to discern a mind that s a little more modern, a little more alive, shewing elf in that college, which is tending to become a mau- leum, if I could reckon upon any possible chance of yur success, I should be the first to inform you of it.” “The Cordon was a mistake,” thought the Prince; the negotiations have not advanced in the least; that ‘not what he wanted. I have not yet laid my hand on e right key.” This was a kind of reasoning of which M. de Norpois, rmed in the same school as the Prince, would also we been capable. One may mock at the pedantic silli- ‘ss with which diplomats of the Norpois type go into stasies over some piece of official wording which is, ‘all practical purposes, meaningless. But their chil- shness has this compensation; diplomats know that, in 2 loaded scales which assure that European or other 355 Y ~ REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST equilibrium which we call peace, good feeling, soundii speeches, earnest entreaties weigh very little; and th! the heavy weight, the true determinant consists in som thing else, in the possibility which the adversary does ( he is strong enough) or does not enjoy of satisfying, | exchange for what one oneself wants, a desire. With th order of truths, which an entirely disinterested perso’ such as my grandmother for instance, would not hay understood, M. de Norpois and Prince von Faffenher) had frequently had to deal. Chargé d’Affaires in cou! tries with which we had been within an ace of going 4 war, M. de Norpois, in his anxiety as to the turn whic events were about to take, knew very well that it wi not by the word “ Peace”, nor by the word “ War” th it would be revealed to him, but by some other, aj parently commonplace word, a word of terror or ble sing, which the diplomat, by the aid of his cipher, wou immediately read and to which, to safeguard the honoy of France, he would respond in another word, quite { commonplace, but one beneath which the Minister | the enemy nation would at once see written: “ War Moreover, in accordance with a time-honoured custor analogous to that which gave to the first meeting b tween two young people promised to one another | marriage the form of a chance encounter at a performan in the Théatre du Gymnase, the dialogue in the course ¢ which destiny was to dictate the word “ War” or the wol, “ Peace” was held, as a rule, not in the ministerial san’ tum but on a bench in a Kurgarten where the Ministi and M. de Norpois went independently to a thermal sprit to drink at its source their little tumblers of some cur: tive water. By a sort of tacit convention they met at tl 356 | | THE GUERMANTES WAY our appointed for their cure, began by taking together ‘short stroll which, beneath its innocent appearance, each ff the speakers knew to be as tragic as an order for obilisation. And so, in a private matter like this nomina- on for election to the Institute, the Prince had employed e same system of induction which had served him in his ublic career, the same method of reading beneath super- posed symbols. 'And certainly it would be wrong to pretend that my vandmother and the few who resembled her would have zen alone in their failure to understand this kind of culation. For one thing, the average human being, prac- sing a profession the lines of which have been laid down © him from the start, comes, near, by his want of intui- om, to the ignorance which my grandmother owed to her fty disinterestedness. Often one has to come down to kept” persons, male or female, before one finds the dden spring of actions or words apparently of the most mocent nature in self-interest, in the bare necessity to sep alive. What man does not know that when a woman hom he is going to pay says to him: “ Don’t let’s talk out money,” the speech must be regarded as what is Iled in music “a silent beat” and that if, later on, she ‘clares: “ You are far too much trouble ; you are always ‘eping things from me; I’ve done with you,” he must terpret this as: “Some one else has been offering her ore.” And yet this is only the language of a lady of \Sy virtue, not so far removed from the ladies in society. he apache furnishes more striking examples. But M. : Norpois and the German Prince, if apaches and their ays were unknown to them, had been accustomed to ming on the same plane as nations, which are also, despite 357 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST their greatness, creatures of selfishness and cunning, kep) in order only by force, by consideration of their materig interests which may drive them to murder, a murder the is often symbolic also, since its mere hesitation or refus¢ to fight may spell for a nation the word “Perish”. By inasmuch as all this is not set forth in Yellow and other wise coloured Books, the people as a whole are natural} pacific; should they be warlike, it is instinctively, fror) hatred, from a sense of injury, not for the reasons whic. -have made up the mind of their ruler, on the advice c his Norpois. | The following winter the Prince was seriously ill; h recovered, but his heart was permanently affected. | “The devil!” he said to himself, “I can’t afford to los any time over the Institute. If I wait too long, I ma: be dead before they elect me. That really would b unpleasant.” 4 He composed, on the foreign politics of the last twent years, an essay for the Revue des Deux Mondes, in whie he referred more than once, and in the most flatterin| terms, to M. de Norpois. The French diplomat calle’ upon him to thank him. He added that he did not kno’ how to express his gratitude. The Prince said to himsel! like a man who has been trying to fit various keys int a stubborn lock: “Still not the right one!” and, feelin somewhat out of breath as he shewed M. de Norpois t the door, thought: ‘Damn it, these fellows will see m in my grave before letting me in. We must hurry up.” | That evening, he met M. de Norpois again at the Oper “ My dear Ambassador,” he began to him, “ you tol me to-day that you did not know what you could dot prove your gratitude; it was a great exaggeration, for yc 358 THE GUERMANTES WAY jwe me none, but I am going to be so indelicate as to ake you at your word.” _M. de Norpois had no less high an esteem for the *rince’s tact than the Prince had for his. He understood t once that it was not a request that Prince von Faffen- ieim was about to present to him, but an offer, and with radiant affability made ready to hear it. “Well now, you will think me highly indiscreet. There re two people to whom I am greatly attached—in quite ifferent ways, as you will understand in a moment—two ieople both of whom have recently settled in Paris, where hey intend to remain for the future: my wife, and the grand Duchess John. They are thinking of giving a few inners, chiefly in honour of the King and Queen of Eng- and, and what they would have liked more than anything fa the world would have been to be able to offer their uests the company of a person for whom, without know- ag her, they both of them feel a great admiration. | onfess that I did not know how I was going to gratify heir wish when I learned just now, by the most extraor- dmary accident, that you were a friend of this person. I mow that she lives a most retired life, and sees only a ery few people— happy few,’ as Stendhal would say— fut if you were to give me your backing, with the gen- fosity that you have always shewn me, I am sure that he would allow you to present me to her and to convey > her the wishes of both the Grand Duchess and the ‘rincess. Perhaps she would consent to dine with us, then the Queen of England comes, and then (one never mows) if we don’t bore her too much, to spend the Easter olidays with us at Beaulieu, at the Grand Duchess John’s. “he person I allude to is called the Marquise de Ville- 399 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST parisis. I confess that the hope of becoming one of th frequenters of such a school of wit would console me would make me contemplate without regret the abandon ing of my attempt at the Institute. For in her house, toc I understand, there is a regular flow of intellect and bril liant talk.” With an inexpressible sense of pleasure the Prince fe that the lock no longer resisted, and that at last the ke was turning. “Such an alternative is wholly Bh arate ek my dea Prince,” replied M. de Norpois; “nothing is more i harmony with the Institute than the house you spea of, which is a regular hotbed of Academicians. I sha convey your request to Mme. la Marquise de Ville parisis: she will undoubtedly be flattered. As for her din ing with you, she goes out very little, and that will perhap be more difficult to arrange. But I shall present you t her and you can plead your cause in person. You must 0 no account give up the Academy; to-morrow fortnigh’ as it happens, I shall be having luncheon, before goin on with him to an important meeting, at Leroy-Beaulieu’ without whom nobody can be elected; I had alread allowed myself in conversation with him to let fall you name, with which, naturally, he was perfectly familia He raised certain objections. But it so happens that h requires the support of my group at the next election, an I fully intend to return to the charge; I shall tell hir quite openly of the wholly cordial ties that unite u T shall not conceal from him that, if you were to stan¢ I should ask all my friends to vote for you,” (here th Prince breathed a deep sigh of relief) “and he know that I have friends. I consider that if I were to succee 360 THE GUERMANTES WAY ! obtaining his assistance your chances would become ary Bas Come that evening, at six, to Mme. de Ville- arisis’s; I will introduce you i her and I can give you a account then of my conversation with him.” Thus it was that Prince von Faffenheim had been d to call upon Mme. de Villeparisis. My profound jsillusionment occurred when he spoke. It had never tuck me that, if an epoch in history has features both articular and general which are stronger than those of “nationality, so that in a biographical dictionary with lustrations, which go so far as to include an authentic ortrait of Minerva, Leibniz with his wig and ruff differs ttle from Marivaux or Samuel Bernard, a nationality as particular features stronger than those of a caste. In le present instance these were rendered before me not ya discourse in which I had expected, before I saw him, > hear the rustling of the elves and the dance of the ‘obolds, but by a transposition which certified no less hae ery ate lainly that poetic origin: the fact that, as he bowed, short, ad, corpulent, over the hand of Mme. de Villeparisis, re Rheingraf said to her: “ Aow to you too, Matame la Be guise,” in the accent of an Alsatian porter. '“Won’t you let me give you a cup of tea or a little f this cake; it is so good?”” Mme. de Guermantes asked ie, anxious to have shewn herself as friendly as possible. Ido the honours in this house just as if it was mine,” de explained in an ironical tone which gave a slightly uttural sound to her voice, as though she were trying 2 stifle a hoarse laugh. “Sir,” said Mme. de Villeparisis to M. de Norpois, you won’t forget that you have something to say to the ‘tince about the Academy?” 361 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST Mme. de Guermantes lowered her eyes and gave | semicircular turn to her wrist to look at the time. “Gracious! I must fly at once if I’m to get to Mme de Saint-Ferréol’s, and I’m dining with Mme. Leroi.” And she rose without bidding me good-bye. She hac just caught sight of Mme. Swann, who appeared con siderably embarrassed at finding me in the room. Sh remembered, doubtless, that she had been the first to as. sure me that she was convinced of Dreyfus’s innocence “T don’t want my mother to introduce me to Mme! Swann,” Saint-Loup said to me. “ She’s an ex-whore. Her husband’s a Jew, and she comes here to pose as a Na tionalist. Hallo, here’s uncle Palaméde.” | The arrival of Mme. Swann had a special interest fo me, due to an incident which had occurred a few days earlier and which I am obliged to record on account of the consequences which it was to have at a much late date, as the reader will learn in due course. Well, a few days before this visit to Mme. de Villeparisis, I had my: self received a visitor whom I little expected, namel Charles Morel, the son (though I had never heard o} his existence) of my great-uncle’s old servant. This great uncle (he in whose house I had met the lady in pink) ha died the year before. His servant had more than one expressed his intention of coming to see me; I had n idea of the object of his visit, but should have been gla to see him for I had learned from Francoise that he ha a genuine veneration for my uncle’s memory and made ¢ pilgrimage regularly to the cemetery in which he was buried. But, being obliged, for reasons of health, to retire to his home in the country, where he expected to remair for some time, he delegated the duty to his son. I was 362 THE GUERMANTES WAY urprised to see come into my room a handsome young ellow of eighteen, dressed with expensive rather than good aste, but looking, all the same, like anything in the world ‘xcept the son of a gentleman’s servant. He made a point, noreover, at the start of our conversation, of severing all ‘onnexion with the domestic class from which he sprang, xy informing me, with a smile of satisfaction, that he had won the first prize at the Conservatoire. The object of his fisit to me was as follows: his father, when going through the effects of my uncle Adolphe, had set aside some which, he felt, could not very well be sent to my parents sut were at the same time of a nature likely to interest , young man of my age. These were the photographs of the famous actresses, the notorious courtesans whom my ancle had known, the last fading pictures of that gay life of a man about town which he divided by a watertight sompartment from his family life. While young Morel was shewing them to me, I noticed that he addressed me as though he were speaking to an equal. He derived from saying “you” to me as often, and “sir” as seldom as dossible the pleasure natural in one whose father had lever ventured, when addressing my parents, upon any- thing but the third person. Almost all these photographs Dore an inscription such as: “To my best friend.” One actress, less grateful and more circumspect than the rest, had written: “ To the best of friends,” which enabled her (so I was assured) to say afterwards that my uncle was n no sense and had never been her best friend but was merely the friend who had done the most little services for her, the friend she made use of, a good, kind man, ‘n other words an old fool. In vain might young Morel seek to divest himself of his lowly origin, one felt that 363 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST the shade of my uncle Adolphe, venerable and gigantic in the eyes of the old servant, had never ceased to hover almost a holy vision, over the childhood and boyhood © the son. While I was turning over the photographs Charles Morel examined my room. And as I was looking for some place in which I might keep them, “ How is it,” he asked me (in a tone in which the reproach had ne need to find expression, so implicit was it in the words themselves), “that I don’t see a single photograph of your uncle in your room?” J felt the blood rise to my cheeks and stammered: “ Why, I don’t believe I have suck a thing.” “What, you haven’t one photograph of you uncle Adolphe, who was so devoted to you! I will sen _you one of my governor’s—he has quantities of them— and I hope you will set it up in the place of honour aboy that chest of drawers, which came to you from you uncle.” It is true that, as I had not even a photograph ol my father or mother in my room, there was nothing s very shocking in there not being one of my uncle Adolphe But it was easy enough to see that for old Morel, wh had trained his son in the same way of thinking, my uncle was the important person in the family, my parent only reflecting a diminished light from his. I was in higher favour, because my uncle used constantly to say that I wa going to turn out a sort of Racine, or Vaulabelle, an Morel regarded me almost as an adopted son, as a chil by election of my uncle. I soon discovered that this young man was extremely “pushing”. Thus at this first meet: ing he asked me, being something of a composer as wel and capable of setting short poems to music, whether ] knew any poet who had a good position in society. | mentioned one. He did not know the work of this poet 364 THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘nd had never heard his name, of which he made a note. Vell, I found out that shortly afterwards he wrote to he poet telling him that, a fanatical admirer of his work, ie, Morel, had composed a musical setting for one of his onnets and would be grateful if the author would arrange or its performance at the Comtesse so-and-so’s. This was soing a little too fast, and exposing his hand. The poet, aking offence, made no reply. For the rest, Charles Morel seemed to have, besides ais ambition, a strong leaning towards more concrete ‘ealities. He had noticed, as he came through the court- yard, Jupien’s niece at work upon a waistcoat, and al- though he explained to me only that he happened to want 4 fancy waistcoat at that very moment, I felt that the zirl had made a vivid impression on him. He had no hesitation about asking me to come downstairs and in- troduce him to her, “but not as a connexion of your family, you follow me, I rely on your discretion not to drag in my father, say just a distinguished artist of your acquaintance, you know how important it is to make a good impression on tradespeople.” Albeit he had sug- gested to me that, not knowing him well enough to call im, he quite realised, “ dear friend,” I might address him, before the girl, in some such terms as “not dear master, of course, ... although... well, if you like, dear distinguished artist,” once in the shop, I avoided “ quality- ing” him, as Saint-Simon would have expressed it, and contented myself with reiterating his “you”. He picked ‘out from several patterns of velvet one of the brightest red imaginable and so loud that, for all his bad taste, he was never able to wear the waistcoat when it was made. The girl settled down to work again with her two 365 —. REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “apprentices ”, but it struck me that the impression ha been mutual, and that Charles Morel, whom she regarded as of her own “ station ” (only smarter and richer), ha proved singularly attractive to her. As I had been greatly surprised to find among the photographs which his father had sent me one of the portrait of Miss Sacripant (other. wise Odette) by Elstir, I said to Charles Morel as I wen with him to the outer gate: “I don’t suppose you can tell me, but did my uncle know this lady well? I don’t see at what stage in his life I can fit her in exactly; and it interests me, because of M. Swann . . .” “ Why, if ] wasn’t forgetting to tell you that my father asked me specially to draw your attention to that lady’s picture, As a matter of fact, she was ‘ lunching’ with your uncle the last time you ever saw him. My father was in tw minds whether to let you in. It seems you made a great impression on the wench, and she hoped to see more of you. But just at that time there was some trouble in the family, by what my father tells me, and you never set eyes on your uncle again.” He broke off with a smile of farewell, across the courtyard, at Jupien’s niece. She was watching him and admiring, no doubt, his thin face and regular features, his fair hair and sparkling eyes. I, as I gave him my hand, was thinking of Mme. Swann and Saying to myself with amazement, so far apart, so dif- ferent were they in my memory, that I should have henceforth to identify her with the “ Lady in pink,” M. de Charlus was not long in taking his place by the side of Mme. Swann. At every social gathering at which he appeared and, contemptuous towards the men, courted by the women, promptly attached himself to the smartest of the latter, whose garments he seemed almost to put 366 THE GUERMANTES WAY m as an ornament to his own, the Baron’s frock coat x swallowtails made one think of a portrait by some feat painter of a man dressed in black but having by tis side, thrown over a chair, the brilliantly coloured cloak vhich he is about to wear at some costume ball. This yartnership, generally with some royal lady, secured for M. de Charlus various privileges which he liked to enjoy. for instance, one result of it was that his hostesses, at heatricals or concerts, allowed the Baron alone to have 1 front seat, in a row of ladies, while the rest of the men vere crowded together at the back of the room. And then yesides, completely absorbed, it seemed, in repeating, at he top of his voice, amusing stories to the enraptured ady, M. de Charlus was dispensed from the necessity of roing to shake hands with any of the others, was set free, n other words, from all social duties. Behind the scented Jarrier in which the beauty of his choice enclosed him, ie was isolated amid a crowded drawing-room, as, in a srowded theatre or concert-hall, behind the rampart of 4 box; and when anyone came up to greet him, through, 30 to speak, the beauty of his companion, it was permis- ible for him to reply quite curtly and without interrupt- ‘ng his business of conversation with a lady. Certainly Mme. Swann was scarcely of the rank of the people with whom he liked thus to flaunt himself. But he professed admiration for her, friendship for Swann, he knew that she would be flattered by his attentions and was himself dattered at being compromised by the prettiest woman the room. Mme. de Villeparisis meanwhile was not too well pleased #0 receive a visit from M. de Charlus. He, while admitting serious defects in his aunt’s character, was genuinely fond 367 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST of her. But every now and then, carried away by angei| by an imaginary grievance, he would sit down and writ to her, without making any attempt to resist his impulse letters full of the most violent abuse, in which he mad the most of trifling incidents which until then he seeme| never even to have noticed. Among other examples I ma’ instance the following, which my stay at Balbec brough to my knowledge: Mme. de Villeparisis, fearing that sh’ had not brought enough money with her to Balbec ti enable her to prolong her holiday there, and not caring since she was of a thrifty disposition and shrank fron unnecessary expenditure, to have money sent to her fron| Paris, had borrowed three thousand francs from M. di Charlus. A month later, annoyed, for some trivial reason) with his aunt, he asked her to repay him this sum by telegraph. He received two thousand nine hundred anc ninety-odd francs. Meeting his aunt a few days later Ir Paris, in the course of a friendly conversation, he drey her attention, with the utmost politeness, to the mistak: that her banker had made when sending the money. “ Bu there was no mistake,” replied Mme. de Villeparisis, “ thd money order cost six francs seventy-five.” “Oh, of course! if it was intentional, it is all right,” said M. de Charlus| “I mentioned it only in case you didn’t know, because in that case, if the bank had done the same thing with) anyone who didn’t know you as well as I do, it might have led to unpleasantness.” “ No, no, there was no mis- take.” “After all, you were quite right,” M. de Charlus concluded easily, stooping to kiss his aunt’s hand. And, in fact he bore no resentment and was only amused at this little instance of her thrift. But some time afterwards, imagining that, in a family matter, his aunt had been 368 , 4 THE GUERMANTES WAY rying to get the better of him and had “worked up a egular conspiracy” against him, as she took shelter, oolishly enough, behind the lawyers with whom he sus- rected her of having plotted to undo him, he had written er a letter boiling over with insolence and rage. “I shall lot be satisfied with having my revenge,” he added as , postscript; “I shall take care to make you a laughing- tock. To-morrow I shall tell everyone the story of the ‘noney order and the six francs seventy-five you kept back ‘rom me out of the three thousand I lent you; I shall lisgrace you publicly.” Instead of so doing, he had gone ‘o his aunt the next day to beg her pardon, having already jegretted a letter in which he had used some really terrible anguage. But apart from this, to whom could he have lold the story of the money order? Seeking no longer vengeance but a sincere reconciliation, now was the time ‘or him to keep silence. But already he had repeated the tory everywhere, while still on the best of terms with his aunt; he had told it without any malice, as a joke, and Decause he was the soul of indiscretion. He had repeated the story, but without Mme. de Villeparisis’s knowledge. With the result that, having learned from his letter that ae intended to disgrace her by making public a transac- sion in which he had told her with his own lips that she jaad acted rightly, she concluded that he had been deceiv- wng her from the first, and had lied when he pretended to be fond of her. This storm had now died down, but neither of them knew what opinion exactly the other had of her or him. This sort of intermittent quarrel is of ‘course somewhat exceptional. Of a different order were the quarrels of Bloch and his friends. Of a different order ‘again were those of M. de Charlus, as we shall presently ‘ 369 x REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST see, with people wholly unlike Mme. de Villeparisis. Ir spite of which we must bear in mind that the opinion; which we hold of one another, our relations with friend; and kinsfolk are in no sense permanent, save in appear. ance, but are as eternally fluid as the sea itself. Wheney all the rumours of divorce between couples who have al ways seemed so perfectly united and will soon afterward: speak of one another with affection, hence all the terribk things said by one friend of another from whom we sup: posed him to be inseparable and with whom we shal find him once more reconciled before we have had time t recover from our surprise; all the ruptures of alliances after so short a time, between nations. “I say, my uncle and Mme. Swann are getting warn over there!” remarked Saint-Loup. “ And look at Mamm: in the innocence of her heart going across to distur them. To the pure all things are pure, I suppose!” | I studied M. de Charlus. The tuft of his grey hair his eye, the brow of which was raised by his monoel to emit a smile, the red flowers in his buttonhole formed so to speak, the three mobile apices of a convulsive an striking triangle. I had not ventured to bow to him, fo he had given me no sign of recognition. And yet, albet he had not turned his head in my direction, I was con: vinced that he had seen me; while he repeated some sto to Mme. Swann, whose sumptuous, pansy-coloured cloal floated actually over the Baron’s knee, his roving eye, like the “tecs ” to appear, had certainly explored every cornei of the room and taken note of all the people who wer in it. M. de Chatellerault came up to bid him good da without any indication on M. de Charlus’s face that h 370 THE GUERMANTES WAY ‘ad seen the young Duke until he was actually standing 1 front of him. In this way, in fairly numerous gatherings uch as this, M. de Charlus kept almost continuously n show a smile without any definite direction or particular bject, which, pre-existing before the greetings of new irrivals, found itself, when these entered its zone, devoid f any indication of friendliness towards them. Never- heless, it was obviously my duty to go across and speak o Mme. Swann. But as she was not certain whether I Jready knew Mme. de Marsantes and M. de Charlus, she vas distinctly cold, fearing no doubt that I might ask ier to introduce me to them. I then made my way to “i. de Charlus, and at once regretted it, for though he ould not have helped seeing me he shewed no sign what- ‘oever. As I stood before him and bowed I found stands vut from his body, which it prevented me from approach- ag by the full length of his outstretched arm, a finger vidowed, one eld have said, of an episcopal ring, of vhich he appeared to be offering, for the kiss of the pare ul, the consecrated site, and I was made to appear to lave penetrated, Meh’ leave from the Baron and by mM act of trespass for which he would hold me per- aanently responsible, the anonymous and vacant disper- jon of his smile. This coldness was hardly of a kind to mcourage Mme. Swann to melt from hers. _“ How tired and worried you look,” said Mme. de Mar- jantes to her son who had come up to greet M. de Zharlus. _ And indeed the expression in Robert’s eyes seemed very minute to reach a depth from which it rose at once ike a diver who has touched bottom. This bottom which turt Robert so when he touched it that he left it at once, 371 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST to return to it a moment later, was the thought that he had quarrelled with his mistress. | “ Never mind,” his mother went on, stroking his cheek “never mind; it’s good to see my little boy again.” But this show of affection seeming to irritate Rober Mme. de Marsantes led her son away to the other en of the room where in an alcove hung with yellow sill a group of Beauvais armchairs massed their violet-hue tapestries like purple irises in a field of buttercups. Mme Swann, finding herself alone and having realised that was a friend of Saint-Loup, beckoned to me to come ani sit beside her. Not having seen her for so long I did no know what to talk to her about. I was keeping an ey on my hat, among the crowd of hats that littered th carpet, and I asked myself with a vague curiosity t whom one of them could belong which was not that o the Duc de Guermantes and yet in the lining of whic! a capital ‘G’ was surmounted by a ducal coronet. I kney who everyone in the room was, and could not think ¢ anyone whose hat this could possibly be. “What a pleasant man M. de Norpois is,” I said t Mme. Swann, looking at the Ambassador. “It is tru Robert de Saint-Loup says he’s a pest, but...” “He is quite right,” she replied. | Seeing from her face that she was thinking of somethin which she was keeping from me, I plied her with ques tions. For the satisfaction of appearing to be greatly take up by some one in this room where she knew hardl anyone, she took me into a corner. | “I am sure this is what M. de Saint-Loup meant, she began, “but you must never tell him I said so, fe he would think me indiscreet, and I value his esteer 372 THE GUERMANTES WAY sty highly; I am an ‘honest Injun,’ don’t you know. he other day, Charlus was dining at the Princesse de uermantes’s; I don’t know how it was, but your name as mentioned. M. de Norpois seems to have told them— 's all too silly for words, don’t go and worry yourself to zath over it, nobody paid any attention, they all knew ily too well the mischievous tongue that said it—that ou were a hypocritical little flatterer.” ‘I have recorded a long way back my stupefaction at 1e discovery that a friend of my father, such as M. de lorpois was, could have expressed himself thus in speak- ig of me. I was even more astonished to learn that my motion on that evening long ago when I had asked him bout Mme. Swann and Gilberte was known to the Prin- esse de Guermantes, whom I imagined never to have eard of my existence. Each of our actions, our words, ur attitudes is cut off from the “ world”, from the people tho have not directly perceived it, by a medium the per- aeability of which is of infinite variation and remains nknown to ourself; having learned by experience that ome important utterance which we eagerly hoped would e disseminated (such as those so enthusiastic speeches hich I used at one time to make to all comers and on very occasion on the subject of Mme. Swann) has found self, often simply on account of our anxiety, immedi- ‘tely hidden under a bushel, how immeasurably less do we suppose that some tiny word, which we ourself have orgotten, or else a word never uttered by us but formed m its course by the imperfect refraction of a different vord, can be transported without ever halting for any ibstacle to infinite distances—in the present instance to she Princesse de Guermantes—and succeed in diverting 373 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST at our expense the banquet of the gods. What we actual] recall of our conduct remains unknown to our neare neighbour; what we have forgotten that we ever said, ¢ indeed what we never did say flies to provoke hilarit even in another planet, and the image that other peop form of our actions and behaviour is no more like th; which we form of them ourself, than is like an origini drawing a spoiled copy in which, at one point, for a blac line, we find an empty gap, and for a blank space a unaccountable contour. It may be, all the same, that wh: has not been transcribed is some non-existent featu which we behold merely in our purblind self-esteem, an that what seems to us added is indeed a part of oursel but so essential a part as to have escaped our notic So that this strange print which seems to us to have § little resemblance to ourself bears sometimes the sam stamp of truth, scarcely flattering, indeed, but profoun and useful, as a photograph taken by X-rays. Not th: that is any reason why we should recognise ourself j it. A man who is in the habit of smiling in the glas at his handsome face and stalwart figure, if you shew hi their radiograph, will have, face to face with that rosar of bones, labelled as being the image of himself, t same suspicion of error as the visitor to an art galler who, on coming to the portrait of a girl, reads in hi catalogue: “ Dromedary resting.” Later on, this discr pancy between our portraits, according as it was our ow THE GUERMANTES WAY an wees were to reveal them with the warning: This is you.” A few years earlier I should have been only too glad 5 tell Mme. Swann in what connexion I had fawned pon M. de Norpois, since the connexion had been my esire to know her. But I no longer felt this desire, I ras no longer in love with Gilberte. On the other hand had not succeeded in identifying Mme. Swann with the ady in pink of my childhood. Accordingly I spoke of the Toman who was on my mind at the moment. = Did you see the Duchesse de Guermantes just now: asked Mme. Swann. But since the Duchess did not bow to Mme, Swann vhen they met, the latter chose to appear to regard ‘er as a person of no importance, whose presence in a oom one did not even remark. ~“T don’t know; I didn’t realise her,” she replied sourly, ising an expression borrowed from England. I was anxious nevertheless for information with regard ot only to Mme. de Guermantes but to all the people vho came in contact with her, and (for all the world like Bloch), with the tactlessness of people who seek in their ‘onversation not to give pleasure to others but to elucidate, ‘rom sheer egoism, facts that are interesting to themselves, n my effort to form an exact idea of the life of Mme. de suermantes I questioned Mme. de Villeparisis about Mme. Leroi. “Oh, yes, I know who’ you mean,” she replied with an iffectation of contempt, “the daughter of those rich tim- ver people. I’ve heard that she’s begun to go about quite t lot lately, but I must explain to you that I am rather oid now to make new acquaintances. I have known such 375 5°99 | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST interesting, such delightful people in my time that realh I do not believe Mme. Leroi would be any addition t what I already have.” Mme. de Marsantes, who was play ing lady in waiting to the Marquise, presented me t the Prince, and, while she was still doing so, M. de Nor pois also presented me in the most glowing terms. Perhap he found it convenient to do me a courtesy which coul in no way damage his credit since I had just been pre sented, perhaps it was because he thought that a foreigner even so distinguished a foreigner, was unfamiliar wit French society and might think that he was having in troduced to him a young man of fashion, perhaps t exercise one of his prerogatives, that of adding the weigh of his personal recommendation as an Ambassador, o in his taste for the archaic to revive in the Prince’s honou: the old custom, flattering to his rank, that two sponsor! were necessary if one wished to be presented. i Mme. de Villeparisis appealed to M. de Norpois, feel ing it imperative that I should have his assurance tha she had nothing to regret in not knowing Mme. Leroi. “Am I not right, M. 1’? Ambassadeur, Mme. Leroi i quite uninteresting, isn’t she, quite out of keeping witl the people who come here; I was quite right not to make friends with her, wasn’t I?” Whether from independence or because he was tired M. de Norpois replied merely in a bow full of respec but devoid of meaning. “ Sir,’ went on Mme. de Villeparisis with a laugh “there are some absurd people in the world. Would youl believe that I had a visit this afternoon from a gentlemarfl who tried to persuade me that he found more pleasure ir kissing my hand than a young woman’s? ” 376 THE GUERMANTES WAY I guessed at once that this was Legrandin. M. de Nor- ois smiled with a slight quiver of the eyelid, as though uch a remark had been prompted by a concupiscence so atural that one could not find fault with the person tho had uttered it, almost as though it were the begin- ing of a romance which he was prepared to forgive, if ot to encourage, with the perverse indulgence of a Voise- on or the younger Crébillon. _“Many young women’s hands would be incapable of wing what I see there,” said the Prince, pointing to Ame. de Villeparisis’s unfinished water-colours. And he sked her whether she had seen the flower paintings by fantin-Latour which had recently been exhibited. “They are of the first order, and indicate, as people ay nowadays, a fine painter, one of the masters of the yalette,” declared M. de Norpois; “I consider, all the ame, that they stand no comparison with these, in which | find it easier to recognise the colouring of the flower.” _ Even supposing that the partiality of an old lover, the iabit of flattering people, the critical standard admissible na small circle had dictated this speech to the ex-Am- yassador, it proved upon what an absolute vacuum of rue taste the judgment of people in society is based, jo arbitrary that the smallest trifle can make it rush to the wildest absurdities, on the way to which it is stopped, aeld up by no genuinely felt impression. “T claim no credit for knowing about flowers, I’ve lived all my life among the fields,” replied Mme. de Villeparisis modestly. “ But,” she added graciously, turning to the Prince, “ If I did, when I was quite a girl, form a rather more serious idea of them than children generally do in the country, I owe that to a distinguished fellow-country- O47 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST man of yours, Herr von Schlegel. I met him at Broglie when I was staying there once with my aunt Cordeliz (Marshal de Castellane’s wife, don’t you know?). I re member so well M. Lebrun, M. de Salvandy, M. Doudan getting him to talk about flowers. I was only a little girl I wasn’t able to follow all he said. But he liked playing with me, and when he went back to your country he sen me a beautiful botany book to remind me of a drive we took together in a phaeton to the Val Richer, when ] fell asleep on his knee. I have got the book still, and i taught me to observe many things about flowers whick I should not have noticed otherwise. When Mme. d Barante published some of Mme. de Broglie’s letters charming and affected like herself, I hoped to find amon them some record of those conversations with Herr vor Schlegel. But she was a woman who looked for nothing from nature but arguments in support of religion.” Robert called me away to the far end of the roo where he and his mother were. “ You have been good to me,” I said, “ how can I thank you? Can we dine together to-morrow? ” “To-morrow? Yes, if you like, but it will have to b with Bloch. I met him just now on the doorstep; he was rather stiff with me at first because I had quite forgotten to answer his last two letters. (At least, he didn’t tell m that that was what had annoyed him, but I guessed it.) But after that he was so friendly to me that I simply can’t disappoint him. Between ourselves, on his side at least, I can feel it’s a life and death friendship.” Nor d I consider that Robert was altogether mistaken. Furious detraction was often, with Bloch, the effect of a keen affection which he had supposed to be unreturned. And 378 THE GUERMANTES WAY s he had little power of imagining the lives of other eople, and never dreamed that one might have been ill, i away from home, or otherwise occupied, a week’s ilence was at once interpreted by him as meaning a 'eliberate coldness. And so I have never believed that is most violent outbursts as a friend, or in later years is a writer, went very deep. They rose to a paroxysm if me replied to them with an icy dignity, or by a platitude hich encouraged him to redouble his onslaught, but Helded often to a warmly sympathetic attitude. “As for yeing good,” went on Saint-Loup, “you say I have been 0 you, but I haven’t been good at all, my aunt tells me hat it’s you who avoid her, that you never said a word o her. She wondered whether you had anything against ser.” Fortunately for myself, if I had been taken in by this peech, our departure, which I believed to be imminent, or Balbec would have prevented my making any attempt o see Mme. Guermantes again, to assure her that I had jothing against her, and so to put her under the necessity f proving that it was she who had something against me. 3ut I had only to remind myself that she had not even offered to let me see her Elstirs. Besides, this was not 4 disappointment; I had never expected her to begin alking to me about them; I knew that I did not appeal co her, that I need have no hope of ever making her ike me; the most that I had been able to look forward o was that, thanks to her kindness, I might there and chen receive, since I should not be seeing her again before {left Paris, an entirely pleasing impression, which I could take with me to Balbec indefinitely prolonged, intact, mstead of a memory broken by anxiety and sorrow. iad REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST Mme. de Marsantes kept on interrupting her conversa tion with Robert to tell me how often he had spoken t her about me, how fond he was of me; she treated m with a deference which almost hurt me because I fel it to be prompted by her fear of being embroiled, or my account, with this son whom she had not seen al day, with whom she was eager to be alone, and ove whom she must accordingly have supposed that the in fluence which she wielded was not equal to and mus: conciliate mine. Having heard me, earlier in the after noon, make some reference to Bloch’s uncle, M. Nissin Bernard, Mme. de Marsantes inquired whether it was hi who had at one time lived at Nice. “In that case, he knew M. de Marsantes there before our marriage,” she told me. “ My husband used ofter to speak of him as an excellent man, with such a delicate generous nature.” | “To think that for once in his life he wasn’t lying! It? incredible,” would have been Bloch’s comment. All this time I should have liked to explain to Mme. de Marsantes that Robert felt infinitely more affection foi her than for myself, and that had she shewn any hostility towards me it was not in my nature to attempt to set him against her, to detach him from her. But now tha Mme. de Guermantes had left the room, I had more leisure to observe Robert, and I noticed then for the first time that, once again, a sort of flood of anger seemed tc be coursing through him, rising to the surface of his stern and sombre features. I was afraid lest, remember: ing the scene in the theatre that afternoon, he might b feeling humiliated in my presence at having allowed himself to be treated so harshly by his mistress without 380 THE GUERMANTES WAY aking any rejoinder. ‘Suddenly he broke away from his mother, who had put er arm round his neck, and, coming towards me, led te behind the little flower-strewn counter at which Mme. e Villeparisis had resumed her seat, making a sign to 1e to follow him into the smaller room. I was hurrying fter him when M. de Charlus, who must have supposed aat I was leaving the house, turned abruptly from Prince on Faffenheim, to whom he had been talking, and made rapid circuit which brought him face to face with me. saw with alarm that he had taken the hat in the lining f which were a capital ‘G’ and a ducal coronet. In the oorway into the little room he said, without looking t me: “ As I see that you have taken to going into society, ‘ou must do me the pleasure of coming to see me. But ’s a little complicated,” he went on with a distracted, alculating air, as if the pleasure had been one that he vas afraid of not securing again once he had let slip the portunity of arranging with me the means by which t might be realised. “I am very seldom at home; you will lave to write to me. But I should prefer to explain things so you more quietly. I am just going. Will you walk a short way with me? I shall only keep you a moment.” “You’ld better take care, sir,’ I warned him; “ you aave picked up the wrong hat by mistake.” “Do you want to stop me taking my own hat?” I as- sumed, a similar mishap having recently occurred to my- self, that someone else having taken his hat he had seized upon one at random, so as not to go home bare-headed, and that I had placed him in a difficulty by exposing his strategem. I told him that I must say a few words to 381 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST Saint-Loup. “He is still talking to that idiot the Duc d Guermantes,” I added. “ That really is charming; I sha tell my brother.” “Oh! you think that would interes M. de Charlus?” (I imagined that, if he had a brother that brother must be called Charlus also. Saint-Loup ha indeed explained his family tree to me at Balbec, but had forgotten the details.) “ Who has been talking to yo about M. de Charlus?” replied the Baron in an arrogan tone. “Go to Robert.” “I hear,” he went on, “that you took part this morn ing in one of those orgies that he has with a womat who is disgracing him. You would do well to use you: influence with him to make him realise the pain he i causing his poor mother, and all of us, by dragging ou name in the dirt.” i I should have liked to reply that at this degrading luncheon the conversation had been entirely about Emer son, Ibsen and Tolstoy, and that the young woman hac lectured Robert to make him drink nothing but water In the hope of bringing some balm to Robert, whose pride had, I felt, been wounded, I sought to find an excuse for his mistress. I did not know that at that moment, in spite of his anger with her, it was on himself that h was heaping reproaches. But it always happens, even i quarrels between a good man and a worthless woman, and when the right is all on one side, that some trifle crop up which enables the woman to appear not to have bee in the wrong on one point. And as she ignores all the other points, the moment the man begins to feel the nee of her company, or is demoralised by separation from her his weakness will make his conscience more exacting, h will remember the absurd reproaches that have been 382 THE GUERMANTES WAY ang at him and will ask himself whether they have not yme foundation in fact. “ve come to the conclusion I was wrong about that atter of the necklace,” Robert said to me. “ Of course, never meant for a moment to do anything wrong, but, know very well, other people don’t look at things in the ime way as oneself. She had a very hard time when ie was young. In her eyes, I was bound to appear just ie rich man who thinks he can get anything he wants ith his money, and with whom a poor person cannot ompete, whether in trying to influence Boucheron or in lawsuit. Of course she has been horribly cruel to me, then I have never thought of anything but her good. ut I do see clearly, she believes that I wanted to make er feel that one could keep a hold on her with money, nd that’s not true. And she’s so fond of me; what must he be thinking of me? Poor darling, if you only knew, he has such charming ways, I simply can’t tell you, he has often done the most adorable things for me. low wretched she must be feeling now! In any case, thatever happens in the long run, I don’t want to let er think me a cad; I shall dash off to Boucheron’s and et the necklace. You never know; very likely when she 2es me with it, she will admit that she’s been in the rong. Don’t you see, it’s the idea that she is suffering t this moment that I can’t bear. What one suffers one- lf one knows; that’s nothing. But with her—to say to meself that his suffering and not to be able to form ny idea of what she feels—I think I shall go mad in a ainute—I’ld much rather never see her again than let ‘er suffer. She can be happy without me, @; she must; hat’s all I ask. Listen; you know, to me everything that 383 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST | concerns her is enormously important, it becomes some. thing cosmic; I shall run to the jeweller’s and then g¢ and ask her to forgive me. But until I get down there what will she be thinking of me? If she could only kno that I was on my way! What about your going dows there and telling her? For all we know, that might settl the whole business. Perhaps,” he went on with a smile as though he hardly ventured to believe in so idyllic ¢ possibility, “ we can all three dine together in the country, But we can’t tell yet. I never know how to handle her Poor child, I shall perhaps only hurt her more than ever Besides, her decision may be irrevocable.” Robert swept me back to his mother. “Good-bye,” he said to her. “I’ve got to go now. |] don’t know when I shall get leave again. Probably not for a month. I shall write as soon as I know myself.” Certainly Robert was not in the least of the type o son who, when he goes out with his mother, feels that an attitude of exasperation towards her ought to balance the smiles and bows which he bestows on strangers, | Nothing is more common than this odious form of ven: | geance on the part of those who appear to believe that _Tudeness to one’s own family is the natural complement | to one’s ceremonial behaviour.| Whatever the wretched mother may say, her son, as though he had been take to the house against his will and wished to make het pay dearly for-his presence, refutes immediately, wit an ironical, precise, cruel contradiction, the timidly ven- tured assertion; the mother at once conforms, though without thereby disarming him, to the opinion of this superior being of whom she will continue to boast t everyone, when he is not present, as having a charmin 384 THE GUERMANTES WAY iature, and who all the same spares her none of his ceenest thrusts. Saint-Loup was not at all like this; but he anguish which Rachel’s absence provoked in him wrought it about that, for different reasons, he was no less iarsh with his mother than the sons I have been describ- ng are with theirs. And as she listened to him I saw he same throb, like that of a mighty wing, which Mme. le Marsantes had been unable to repress when her son irst entered the room, convulse her whole body once igain; but this time it was an anxious face, eyes wide vith grief that she fastened on him. “What, Robert, you’re going away? Seriously? My ittle son! The one day I’ve seen anything of you!” _And then quite softly, in the most natural tone, in a foice from which she strove to banish all sadness so as tot to inspire her son with a pity which would perhaps iave been painful to him, or else useless and might serve mly to irritate him, like an argument prompted by plain ommon sense she added: _ “You know, it’s not at all nice of you.” _ But to this simplicity she added so much timidity, to hew him that she was not trespassing on his freedom, much affection, so that he should not reproach her with spoiling his pleasures, that Saint-Loup could not ail to observe in himself as it were the possibility of a imilar wave of affection, that was to say an obstacle to ais spending the evening with his lady. And so he grew mgry: “It’s unfortunate, but, nice or not, that’s how it is.” And he heaped on his mother the reproaches which no loubt he felt that he himself perhaps deserved; thus it is hat egoists have always the last word; having laid down I 385 ne “ REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST at the start that their determination is unshakeable, th more the sentiment in them to which one appeals to mak them abandon it is touched, the more fault they find, ne with themselves who resist the appeal but with thos persons who put them under the necessity of resisting it with the result that their own firmness may be carried t the utmost degree of cruelty, which only aggravates a! the more in their eyes the culpability of the person wh is so indelicate as to be hurt, to be in the right, and t cause them thus treacherously the pain of acting agains their natural instinct of pity. But of her own accor Mme. de Marsantes ceased to insist, for she felt that sh would not be able to keep him. | “T shall leave you here,” he said to me, “but your not to keep him long, Mamma, because he’s got to g somewhere else in a minute.” I was fully aware that my company could not affor any pleasure to Mme. de Marsantes, but I preferred, b not going with Robert, not to let her suppose that I wa involved in these pleasures which deprived her of hin I should have liked to find some excuse for her son’s con duct, less from affection for him than from pity for hei But it was she who spoke first: “Poor boy,” she began, “I am sure I must have hur him dreadfully. You see, Sir, mothers are such selfis creatures, after all he hasn’t many pleasures, he comes § little to Paris. Oh, dear, if he hadn’t gone already should have liked to stop him, not to keep him of cours but just to tell him that I’m not vexed with him, tha I think he was quite right. Will you excuse me if I g and look over the staircase? ” I accompanied her there. 386 THE GUERMANTES WAY “Robert! Robert!” she called. “No; he’s gone; we -e too late.” At that moment I would as gladly have undertaken mission to make Robert break with his mistress as, few hours earlier, to make him go and live with her together. In one case Saint-Loup would have regarded te as a false friend, in the other his family would have uled me his evil genius. Yet I was the same man, at an iterval of a few hours. ‘We returned to the drawing-room. Seeing that Saint- oup was not with us, Mme. de Villeparisis exchanged ith M. de Norpois that dubious, derisive and not too itying glance with which people point out to one another 1 over-jealous wife or an over-loving mother (spectacles hich to outsiders are amusing), as much as to say: ‘There now, there’s been trouble.” | Robert went to his mistress, taking with him the splen- id ornament which, after what had been said on both des, he ought not to have given her. But it came to the ume thing, for she would not look at it, and even after ieir reconciliation he could never persuade her to accept . Certain of Robert’s friends thought that these proofs f disinterestedness which she furnished were deliberately lanned to draw him closer to her. And yet she was not reedy about money, except perhaps to be able to spend ‘without thought. I have seen her bestow recklessly on eople whom she believed to be in need the most in- msate charity. “At this moment,” Robert’s friends ‘ould say to him, seeking to balance by their ieee: ‘ords a Be ected action on Rachel’s part, “at this toment she will be in the promenade at the Folies- ergeres. She’s an enigma, that girl is, a regular sphinx.” 387 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST After all, how many women who are not disintereste since they. are kept by men, have we not seen, with | delicacy that flowers from their sordid existence, set wit their own hands a thousand little limits to the generosit of their lovers? Robert knew of scarcely any of the infidelities of h’ mistress, and tortured his mind over what were me nothings compared with the real life of Rachel, a li! which began every day only after he had left her. H knew of scarcely any of these infidelities. One could hay told him of them without shaking his confidence in Rachel For it is a charming law of nature which manifests itse in the heart of the most complex social organisms, thi we live in perfect ignorance of those we love.{On of side of the mirror the lover says to himself: “ She is a angel, she will never yield herself to me, I may as we die—and yet she does care for me; she cares so muc that perhaps—but no, it can never possibly happen And in the exaltation of his desire, in the anguish of wai’ ing, what jewels he flings at the feet of this woman, ho he runs to borrow money to save her from inconvenienci meanwhile, on the other side of the screen, through whic their conversation will no more carry than that whic visitors exchange outside the glass wall of an aquariur the public are saying: “You don’t know her? I cor gratulate you, she has robbed, in fact ruined I don know how many men. There isn’t a worse girl in Pari She’s a common swindler. And cunning isn’t the word!) And perhaps the public are not entirely wrong in the! use of the last epithet, for indeed the sceptical man wh is not really in love with the woman and whom she mere} attracts says to his friends: “No, no, my dear felloy 388 THE GUERMANTES WAY she is not in the least a prostitute; I don’t say she hasn’t nad an adventure or two in her time, but she’s not a woman one pays, she’d be a damned sight too expensive f£she was. With her it’s fifty thousand francs or nothing.” Well, he has spent fifty thousand francs on her, he has had her once, but she (finding, moreover, a willing ac- complice in the man himself) has managed to persuade him that he is one of those who have had her for nothing. Such is society, in which every one of us has two aspects, in which the most obvious, the most notorious faults will mever be known by a certain other person save embedded in, under the protection of a shell, a smooth cocoon, a deli- cious curiosity of nature. There were in Paris two thor- oughly respectable men to whom Saint-Loup no longer bowed, and could not refer without a tremor in his voice, calling them exploiters of women: this was because they had both been ruined by Rachel. “I blame myself for one thing only,” Mme. de Marsan- tes murmured in my ear, “and that was my telling him that he wasn’t nice to me. He, such an adorable, unique son, there’s no one else like him in the world, the only time I see him, to have told him he wasn’t nice to me, I would far rather he’d beaten me, because I am sure that whatever pleasure he may be having this evening, and he hasn’t many, will be spoiled for him by that unfair word. But, Sir, I mustn’t keep you, since you’re in a hurry.” Anxiously, Mme. de Marsantes bade me good-bye. These sentiments bore upon Robert; she was sincere. But she ceased to be, to become a great lady once more. “TI have been so interested, so glad to have this little talk with you. Thank you! Thank you!” 389 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST And with a humble air she fastened on me a look of gratitude, of exhilaration, as though my conversation were one of the keenest pleasures that she had experienced in her life. These charming glances went very well with the black flowers on her white skirt; they were those of a great lady who knew her business. “But I am in no hurry,” I replied; “besides, I mus wait for M. de Charlus; I am going with him.” Mme. de Villeparisis overheard these last words. They appeared to vex her. Had the matter in question not been one which could not possibly give rise to such a sentiment, it might have struck me that what seemed to be at that moment alarmed in Mme. de Villeparisis was her modesty; But this hypothesis never even entered my mind. I was delighted with Mme. de Guermantes, with Saint-Loup, with Mme. de Marsantes, with M. de Charlus, with Mme) de Villeparisis; I did not stop to reflect, and I spoke light. heartedly and at random. | “You’re going from here with my nephew Palaméde?” she asked me. | Thinking that it might produce a highly favourable im4 pression on Mme. de Villeparisis if she learned that I was on intimate terms with a nephew whom she esteemed sc greatly, “He has asked me to go home with him,” I an, swered blithely. “I am so glad. Besides, we are greatel friends than you think, and I’ve quite made up my ming¢ that we’re going to be better friends still.” From being vexed, Mme. de Villeparisis seemed to have grown anxious. “ Don’t wait for him,” she said to me, witl| a preoccupied air. “He is talking to M. de Faffenheim) He’s certain to have forgotten what he said to you. Youl¢ much better go, now, quickly, while his back is turned.” 390 THE GUERMANTES WAY The first emotion shewn by Mme. de Villeparisis would ave suggested, but for the circumstances, offended mod- ssty. Her insistence, her opposition might well, if one had studied her face alone, have appeared to be dictated by virtue. I was not, myself, in any hurry to join Robert and iis mistress. But Mme. de Villeparisis seemed to make such a point of my going that, thinking perhaps that she aad some important business to discuss with her nephew, [ bade her good-bye. Next to her M. de Guermantes, uperb and Olympian, was ponderously seated. One would aave said that the notion, omnipresent in all his members, of his vast riches gave him a particular high density, as though they had been melted in a crucible into a single human ingot to form this man whose value was so immense. At the moment of my saying good-bye to him he rose politely from his seat, and I could feel the dead weight of thirty millions which his old-fashioned French oreeding set in motion, raised, until it stood before me. I seemed to be looking at that statue of Olympian Zeus which Pheidias is said to have cast in solid gold. Such was the power that good breeding had over M. de Guer- mantes, over the body of M. de Guermantes at least, for it had not an equal mastery over the ducal mind. M. de Guermantes laughed at his own jokes, but did not unbend to other people’s. _ As I went downstairs I heard behind me a voice calling out to me: “So this is how you wait for me, is it?” _ It was M. de Charlus. “You don’t mind if we go a little way on foot?” he asked dryly, when we were in the courtyard. “We can walk until I find a cab that suits me.” 391 | REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “You wished to speak to me about something, Sir?’ “Oh yes, as a matter of fact there were some things | wished to say to you, but I am not so sure now whether i shall. As far as you are concerned, I am sure that they, might be the starting-point which would lead you to ines. timable benefits. But I can see also that they would bring into my existence, at an age when one begins to valu¢ tranquillity, a great loss of time, great inconvenience. ] ask myself whether you are worth all the pains that should have to take with you, and I have not the pleasure of knowing you well enough to be able to say. Perhaps also to you yourself what I could do for you does not, appear sufficiently attractive for me to give myself s¢ much trouble, for I repeat quite frankly that for me if can only be trouble.” I protested that, in that case, he must not dream of it, This summary end to the discussion did not seem to be tc his liking. “ That sort of politeness means nothing,” he rebuked me coldly. “There is nothing so pleasant as to give one- self trouble for a person who is worth one’s while, For the best of us, the study of the arts, a taste for old things, collections, gardens are all mere ersatz, succedanea, alibis, In the heart of our tub, like Diogenes, we cry out for a man. We cultivate begonias, we trim yews, as a last re- _ Sort, because yews and begonias submit to treatment. But we should like to give our time to a plant of human growth, if we were sure that he was worth the trouble. That is the whole question: you must know something about your-| self. Are you worth my trouble or not?” | “T would not for anything in the world, Sir, be a cause of anxiety to you,” I said to him, “ but so far as I am con- 392 o—s —_—_— i | i ———- THE GUERMANTES WAY cerned you may be sure that everything which comes to me from you will be a very great pleasure to me. I am deeply touched that you should be so kind as to take notice of me in this way and try to help me.” Greatly to my surprise, it was almost with effusion that he thanked me for this speech, slipping his arm through mine with that intermittent familiary which had already struck me at Balbec, and was in such contrast to the cold- ness of his tone. “With the want of consideration common at your age,” he told me, “you are liable to say things at times which would open an unbridgeable gulf between us. What you have said just now, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of thing that pougees me, and makes me want to do a great deal for you.” ' As he walked arm in arm with me and uttered these words, which, albeit tinged with contempt, were so affec- jtionate, M. de Charlus now fastened his gaze on me with ‘that intense fixity which had struck me the first morning, when I saw him outside the casino at Balbec, and indeed ‘many years before that, through the pink hawthorns, Standing beside Mme. Swann, whom I supposed then to be his mistress, in the park at Tansonville; now let it stray around him and examine the cabs which at this time of the day were passing in considerable numbers on the way to their stables, looking so determinedly at them that ‘several stopped, the drivers supposing that he wished to engage them. But M. de Charlus immediately dismissed them. “They’re not what I want,” he explained to me, “it’s all a question of the colour of their lamps, and the direc- tion they’re going in. I hope, Sir,” he went on, “ that you 393 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST will not in any way misinterpret the purely disinterested and charitable nature of the proposal which I am going! to make to you.” i) I was struck by the similarity of his diction to Swann’s, closer now than at Balbec. “You have enough intelligence, I suppose, not to} imagine that it is from want of society, from any fear ol! solitude and boredom that I have recourse to you. I da not, as a rule, care to talk about myself, but you may possibly have heard—it was alluded to in a leading article| in The Times, which made a considerable impression— that the Emperor of Austria, who has always honoured| me with his friendship, and is good enough to insist on! keeping up terms of cousinship with me, declared the other| day in an interview which was made public that if the Comte de Chambord had had by his side a man as thor-’ oughly conversant with the undercurrents of European) politics as myself he would be King of France to-day. I have often thought, sir, that there was in me, thanks not to my own humble talents but to circumstances which you may one day have occasion to learn, a sort of secret record, of incalculable value, of which I have not felt myself at; liberty to make use, personally, but which would be a! priceless acquisition to a young man to whom I would! hand over in a few months what it has taken me more than thirty years to collect, what I am perhaps alone in| possessing. I do not speak of the intellectual enjoyment) which you would find in learning certain secrets which a, Michelet of our day would give years of his life to know, | and in the light of which certain events would assume for him an entirely different aspect. And I do not speak | only of events that have already occurred, but of the chain’ 394 THE GUERMANTES WAY of circumstances.” (This was a favourite expression with M. de Charlus, and often, when he used it, he joined his hands as if in prayer, but with his fingers stiffened, as though to illustrate by their complexity the said circum- stances, which he did not specify, and the chain that linked them.) “I could give you an explanation that no one has dreamed of, not only of the past but of the future.” M. de Charlus broke off to question me about Bloch, whom he had heard discussed, though without ap- pearing to be listening, in his aunt’s drawing-room. And with that ironical accent he so skilfully detached what he was saying that he seemed to be thinking of something else altogether, and to be speaking mechanically, simply ‘out of politeness. He asked if my friend was young, good looking and so forth. Bloch, if he had heard him, would have been more puzzled even than with M. de Norpois, but for very different reasons, to know whether M. de Charlus was for or against Dreyfus. “It is not a bad idea, if you wish to learn about life,” went on M. de Charlus ‘when he had finished questioning me, “ to include among ‘your friends an occasional foreigner.” I replied that Bloch ‘was French. “ Indeed,” said M. de Charlus, “ I took him ‘to be a Jew.” His assertion of this incompatibility made. ime suppose that M. de Charlus was more anti-Dreyfusard ‘than anyone I had met. He protested, however, against ‘the charge of treason levelled against Dreyfus. But his protest took this form: “I understand the newspapers to say that Dreyfus has committed a crime against his coun- try—so I understand, I pay no attention to the news- papers, I read them as I wash my hands, without finding that it is worth my while to take any interest in what I am doing. In any case, the crime is non-existent, your 395 / 4 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST friend’s compatriot would have committed a crime if h had betrayed Judaea, but what has he to do with France?” I pointed out that if there should be a war the Jews would be mobilised just as much as anyone else. “ Per haps so, and I am not sure that it would not be an im- _prudence. If we bring over Senegalese and Malagasies, ] hardly suppose that their hearts will be in the task o defending France, which is only natural. Your Dreyfu might rather be convicted of a breach of the laws of hos- pitality. But we need not discuss that. Perhaps you could ask your friend to allow me to be present at some grea festival in the Temple, at a circumcision, with Jewish chants. He might perhaps take a hall, and give me som biblical entertainment, as the young ladies of Saint-Cyr performed scenes taken from the Psalms by Racine, t amuse Louis XIV. You might even arrange parties to giv us a good laugh. For instance a battle between your friend and his father, in which he would smite him as David smote Goliath. That would make quite an amusing farce, He might even, while he was about it, deal some stou blows at his hag (or, as my old nurse would say, his “haggart”) of a mother. That would be an excellent show, and would not be unpleasing to us, eh, my youn friend, since we like exotic spectacles, and to thrash that nurse, whose Molieresque vocabulary he had just quoted, and thought to myself that the connexions, hitherto, I felt, little studied, between goodness and wickedness in the 396 THE GUERMANTES WAY ame heart, various as they might be, would be an interest- ng subject for research. I warned him that, anyhow, Mme. Bloch no longer .xisted, while as for M. Bloch, I questioned to what extent ye would enjoy a sport which might easily result in his yeing blinded. M. de Charlus seemed annoyed. “ That,” ne said, “is a woman who made a great mistake in dying. . As for blinding him, surely the Synagogue is blind, it does aot perceive the truth of the Gospel. In any case, think, at this moment, when all these unhappy Jews are trem- bling before the stupid fury of the Christians, what an honour it would be for him to see a man like myself con- escend to be amused by their sports.” At this point I caught sight of M. Bloch senior, who was coming towards us, probably on his way to meet his son. He did not see us, but I offered to introduce him to M. de Charlus. I }had no conception of the torrent of rage which my words lwere to let loose. “Introduce him to me! But you must shave singularly little idea of social values! People do not get to know me as easily as that. In the present instance, ‘the awkwardness would be twofold, on account of the ‘youth of the introducer and the unworthiness of the per- ‘son introduced. At the most, if I am ever permitted to enjoy the Asiatic spectacle which I suggested to you, I ‘might address to the horrible creature a few words in- dicative of generous feeling. But on condition that he ‘allows himself to be thoroughly thrashed by his son, I ‘might go so far as to express my satisfaction.” As it hap- pened, M. Bloch paid no attention to us. He was occupied in greeting Mme. Sazerat with a series of sweeping bows, ‘which were very favourably received. I was surprised at ‘this, for in the old days at Combray she had been indig- 397 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST nant at my parents having young Bloch in the house, gs anti-semitic was she then. But Dreyfusism, like a stron{ gust of wind, had, a few days before this, wafted M. Bloc to her feet. My father’s friend had found Mme. Sazera charming and was particularly gratified by the anti-semi tism of the lady, which he regarded as a proof of the sincerity of her faith and the soundness of her Dreyfusarc opinions, and also as enhancing the value of the call whict she had authorised him to pay her. He had not even beer offended when she had said to him stolidly: “ M. Drumont has the impudence to put the Revisionists in the same bag as the Protestants and the Jews. A delightful promis: cuity!” “ Bernard,” he had said with pride, on reaching home, to M. Nissim Bernard, “ you know, she has that prejudice!” But M. Nissim Bernard had said nothing, only raising his eyes to heaven in an angelic gaze. Sad- dened by the misfortunes of the Jews, remembering his old friendships with Christians, grown mannered and precious with increasing years, for reasons which the reader will learn in due course, he had now the air of a pre-Raphaelite ghost on to which hair had been incon- gruously grafted, like threads in the heart of an opal. “All this Dreyfus business,” went on the Baron, still clasping me by the arm, “has only one drawback. It de- stroys society (I do not say polite society; society has long ceased to deserve that laudatory epithet) by the influx o Mr. and Mrs. Camels and Camelries and Camelyards, astonishing creatures whom I find even in the houses of my own cousins, because they belong to the Patrie Fran- caise, or the Anti-Jewish, or some such league, as if a political opinion entitled one to any social qualification.” This frivolity in M. de Charlus brought out his family 398 THE GUERMANTES WAY keness to the Duchesse de Guermantes. I remarked te tim on the resemblance. As he appeared to think that I lid not know her, I reminded him of the evening at the Dpera when he had seemed to be trying to avoid me. He issured me with such insistence that he had never even een me there that I should have begun to believe him, if yresently a trifling ‘ncident had not led me to think that M. de Charlus, in his excessive pride perhaps, did not ‘are to be seen with me. “Let us return to yourself,” he said, “and my plans for you. There exists among certain men, sirjia’ frees nasonry of which I cannot now say more than that it num- yers in its ranks four of the reigning sovereigns of Europe. Now, the courtiers of one of these are trying to cure him of his fancy. That is a very serious matter, and may bring us to war. Yes, sir, that is a fact. You remember the story of the man who believed that he had the Princess of China shut up in a bottle. It was a form of insanity. He was cured of it. But as soon as he ceased to be mad he became merely stupid. There are maladies which we must not seek to cure because they alone protect us from others that are more serious. A cousin of mine had trouble with his stomach; he could not digest anything. {The most learned specialists on the stomach treated him, ‘with no effect. I took him to a certain doctor (another highly interesting man, by the way, of whom I could tell ‘you a great deal). He guessed at once that the trouble was nervousness; he persuaded his patient, ordered him to eat whatever he liked quite boldly and assured him that his digestion would stand it. But my cousin had nephritis also. What the stomach can digest perfectly well the kid- neys cease, after a time, to eliminate, and my cousin, in- 399 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST stead of living to a good old age with an imaginary diseas of the stomach which obliged him to keep to a diet, die at forty with his stomach cured but his kidneys ruined Given a very considerable advantage over people of you age, for all one knows, you will perhaps become wha some eminent man of the past might have been if a goo angel had revealed to him, in the midst of a humanity tha knew nothing of them, the secrets of steam and electricity Do not be foolish, do not refuse from discretion. Under. stand that, if I do you a great service, I expect my rewarc from you to be no less great. It is many years now sinc people in society ceased to interest me. I have but one passion left, to seek to redeem the mistakes of my life by conferring the benefit of my knowledge on a soul that is still virgin and capable of being inflamed by virtue. I have had great sorrows, sir, of which I may tell you perhaps some day; I have lost my wife, who was the loveliest, the noblest, the most perfect creature that one could dream of seeing. I have young relatives who are not—I do not say worthy, but who are not capable of accepting the moral heritage of which I have been speaking. For all I know, you may be he into whose hands it is to pass, he whose life I shall be able to direct and to raise to so lofty a plane, My own would gain in return. Perhaps in teaching you the great secrets of diplomacy I might recover a taste for them myself, and begin at last to do things of real interest in which you would have an equal share. But before I can tell I must see you often, very often, every day.” | I was thinking of taking advantage of this unexpected kindness on M. de Charlus’s part to ask him whether he could not arrange for me to meet his sister-in-law when, 400 THE GUERMANTES WAY uddenly, I felt my arm violently jerked, as though by an Tectric shock. It was M. de Charlus who had hurriedly yithdrawn his arm from mine. Although as he talked e had allowed his eyes to wander in all directions he had mly just caught sight of M. d’Argencourt, who was com- ag towards us from a side street. On seeing us, M. ’Argencourt appeared worried, cast at me a look of dis- rust, almost that look intended for a creature of another ace than one’s own with which Mme. de Guermantes had uizzed Bloch, and tried to avoid us. But one would have aid that M. de Charlus was determined to shew him that was not at all anxious not to be seen by him, for he alled to him, simply to tell him something that was f no importance. And fearing perhaps that M. d’Argen- ourt had not recognised me, M. de Charlus informed him hat I was a great friend of Mme. de Villeparisis, of he Duchesse de Guermantes, of Robert de Saint-Loup, nd that he himself, Charlus, was an old friend of my randmother, and glad to be able to shew her grandson little of the affection that he felt for her. Nevertheless observed that M. d’Argencourt, albeit I had barely been itroduced to him at Mme. de Villeparisis’s, and M. de -harlus had now spoken to him at great length about my amily, was distinctly colder to me than he had been in he afternoon; and for a long time he shewed the same loofness he Ap we met. He watched me now with a uriosity in which there was no sign of friendliness, and eemed even to have to overcome an instinctive repul- ion when, on leaving us, after a moment’s hesitation, he eld out a hand to me which he at once withdrew. -“T am sorry about that,” said M. de Charlus. “That sllow Argencourt, well born but ill bred, more than feeble I 401 Zz REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST as a diplomat, an impossible husband, always running aftei women like a person in a play, is one of those men why are incapable of understanding but perfectly capable o destroying the things in life that are really great. I hop that our friendship will be one of them, if it is ever to be formed, and I hope also that you will honour me by keep: ing it—as I shall—well clear of the heels of any of thos donkeys who, from idleness or clumsiness or deliberate wickedness trample upon what would seem to have beer made to endure. Unfortunately, that is the mould in whie most of the men one meets have been cast.” . “The Duchesse de Guermantes seems to be very clever We were talking this afternoon about the possibility o war. It appears that she is specially well informed on tha subject.” “She is nothing of the sort,” replied M. de Charluy tartly. “ Women, and most men, for that matter, under stand nothing of what I was going to tell you. My sister in-law is a charming woman who imagines that we ar still living in the days of Balzac’s novels, when wome had an influence on politics. Going to her house could a present have only a bad effect on you, as for that matte going anywhere. That was one of the very things I wa just going to tell you when that fool interrupted me. Th first sacrifice that you must make for me—I shall clai them from you in proportion to the gifts I bestow on yo —is to give up going into society. It distressed me thill afternoon to see you at that idiotic tea-party. You ma’ remind me that I was there myself, but for me it was no} a social gathering, it was simply a family visit. Later o when you have established your position, if it amuses yo to step down for a little into that sort of thing, it may 402 THE GUERMANTES WAY serhaps, do no harm. And then, I need not point out how mvaluable I can be to you. The ‘Open Sesame’ to the suermantes house and any others that it is worth while throwing open the doors of to you, rests with me. I hall be the judge, and intend to remain master of the \ituation.” _I thought I would take advantage of what M. de charlus had said about my call on Mme. de Villeparisis ‘0 try to find out what position exactly she occupied in society, but the question took another form on my lips han I had intended, and I asked him instead what the Villeparisis family was. _ “That is absolutely as though you had asked me what he Nobody family was,” replied M. de Charlus. “ My unt married, for love, a M. Thirion, who was extremely ich, for that matter, and whose sisters had married sur- yrisingly well; and from that day onwards he called him- elf Marquis de Villeparisis. It did no harm to anyone, {t the most a little to himself, and very little! What his eason was I cannot tell; I suppose he was actually a Monsieur de Villeparisis’, a gentleman born at Ville- larisis, which as you know is the name of a little place mutside Paris. My aunt tried to make out that there was uch a Marquisate in the family, she wanted to put things a proper footing; I can’t tell you why. When one takes “name to which one has no right it is better not to copy he regular forms.” | Mme. de Villeparisis being merely Mme. Thirion com- \ ‘leted the fall which had begun in my estimation of her | vhen I had seen the composite nature of her party. I felt : to be unfair that a woman whose title and name were f quite recent origin should be able thus to impose upon 403 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST her contemporaries, with the prospect of similarly impos ing upon posterity, by virtue of her friendships with roya personages. Now that she had become once again what had supposed her to be in my childhood, a person who hai nothing aristocratic about her, these distinguished kin folk who gathered round her seemed to remain alien t her. She did not cease to be charming to us all. I wen occasionally to see her and she sent me little presents fror time to time. But I had never any impression that sh belonged to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and if I ha: wanted any information about it she would have been o of the last people to whom I should have applied. “ At present,” went on M. de Charlus, “by going int society, you will only damage your position, warp yo intellect and character. Also, you must be particularl careful in choosing your friends. Keep mistresses, if you family have no objection, that doesn’t concern me, inde I can only advise it, you young rascal, young rascal w will soon have to start shaving,” he rallied me, passing hi fingers over my chin. “But the choice of your men friend is more important. Eight out of ten young men are litt scoundrels, little wretches capable of doing you an injur which you will never be able to repair. Wait, now, m nephew Saint-Loup is quite a suitable companion for yo at a pinch. As far as your future is concerned, he can k of no possible use to you, but for that I am sufficient. An really, when all’s said and done, as a person to go abou with, at times when you have had enough of me, he do not seem to present any serious drawback that I know o At any rate he is a man, not one of those effeminat creatures one sees so many of nowadays, who look like li tle renters, and at any moment may bring their innoce 404 THE GUERMANTES WAY ictims to the gallows.” I did not know the meaning of ais slang word “renter”; anyone who had known it ‘ould have been as greatly surprised by his use of it is myself. People in society always like talking slang, 4nd people against whom certain things may be hinted ike to shew that they are not afraid to mention them. 4, proof of innocence in their eyes. But they have lost heir sense of proportion, they are no longer capable of jealising the point at which a certain pleasantry will yvecome too technical, too shocking, will be a proof rather f corruption than of simplicity. “ He is not like the rest if them; he has nice manners; he is really serious.” I could not help smiling at this epithet “serious”, to ivhich the intonation that M. de a. gave to it seemed yO impart the sense of “virtuous”, of “steady”, as one jays of a little shop- girl that she is “serious”. At this (moment a cab passed, zigzagging along the street; a young jtabman, who had deserted his box, was driving it from \nside, where he lay sprawling upon the cushions, ap- ioarently half drunk. M. de Charlus instantly stopped him. (Lhe driver began to argue: ; “Which way are you going: ; “Yours.” This surprised me, for M. de Charlus had jalready refused several cabs with similarly coloured lamps. \ “ Well, I don’t want to get up on the box. D’you mind sif I stay down here: ” » “No; but you must put down the hood. Well, think over my proposal,” said M. de Charlus, preparing to leave ime, “TI give you a few days to consider my offer; write to yme. I repeat, I shall need to see you every day, and to Hreceive from you guarantees of loyalty, of discretion ywhich, for that matter, you do appear, I must say, to i 405 > 29 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST furnish. But in the course of my life I have been so ofte | taken in by appearances that I never wish to trust then again. Damn it, it’s the least you can expect that befon} giving up a treasure I should know into what hands it if going to pass. Very well, bear in mind what I’m offeriny you; you are like Hercules (though, unfortunately fo yourself, you do not appear to me to have quite his mus cular development) at the parting of the ways. Try no to have to regret all your life not having chosen the way that leads to virtue. Hallo!” he turned to the cabmar “haven’t you put the hood down? I'll do it myself. « think, too, I’ld better drive, seeing the state you appea; to be in.” He jumped in beside the cabman, took the reins, an the horse trotted off. As for myself, no sooner had I turned in at our gat than I found the pendant to the conversation which I ha heard exchanged that afternoon between Bloch and M. de Norpois, but in another form, brief, inverted and cruel This was a dispute between our butler, who believed it Dreyfus, and the Guermantes’, who was an anti-Drey: fusard. The truths and counter-truths which came in con flict above ground, among the intellectuals of the riva Leagues, the Patrie Francaise and the Droits de ? Homme were fast spreading downwards into the subsoil of popu} lar opinion. M. Reinach was manipulating, by appeals te sentiment, people whom he had never seen, while fot himself the Dreyfus case simply presented itself to his reason as an incontrovertible theory which he proved. ir the sequel by the most astonishing victory for rational | policy (a victory against France, according to some) thaiff the world has ever seen. In two years he replaced a Billoif 406 THE GUERMANTES WAY yy a Clemenceau Ministry, revolutionised public opinion ‘rom top to bottom, took Picquart from his prison to in- stall him, ungrateful, in the Ministry of War. Perhaps this -ationalist manipulator of crowds was himself the puppet of his ancestry.. When we find that the systems of philos- sphy which contain the most truths were dictated to their authors, in the last analysis, by reasons of sentiment, how are we to suppose that in a simple affair of politics like the Dreyfus case reasons of this order may not, unknown to the reasoner, have controlled his reason. Bloch believed himself to have been led by a logical sequence to choose Dreyfusism, yet he knew that his nose, skin and hair had been imposed on him by his race. Doubtless the reason enjoys more freedom; yet it obeys certain laws which it has not prescribed for itself. The case of the Guermantes’ butler and our own was peculiar. The waves of the two currents of Dreyfusism and anti-Dreyfusism which now divided France from end to end were, on the whole, silent, but the occasional echoes which they emitted were sincere. When you heard anyone in the middle of a conversation which was being deliberately kept off the Case announce furtively some piece of political news, generally false, but always with a hopefulness of its truth, you could induce from the nature of his predictions where his heart lay. ‘Thus there came into conflict on certain points, on one side a timid apostolate, on the other a righteous indigna- tion. The two butlers whom I heard arguing as I came in furnished an exception to the rule. Ours let it be under- ‘stood that Dreyfus was guilty, the Guermantes’ butler that he was innocent. This was done not to conceal their personal convictions, but from cunning, and in the keen- ness of their rivalry. Our butler, being uncertain whether 407 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST the fresh trial would be ordered, wished beforehand, in the event of failure, to deprive the Duke’s butler of the jOy of seeing a just cause vanquished. The Duke’s butlei thought that, in the event of a refusal, ours would be more indignant at the detention on the Devil’s Isle of ar innocent man. The porter looked on. I had the impression that it was not he who was the cause of dissension in the Guermantes household. ourself condemned to live. My grandmother’s attacks passed, often enough, unnoticed by the attention which she kept always diverted to ourselves. When the pain was severe, in the hope of curing it, she would try in vain to, understand what the trouble was. If the morbid phe- nomena of which her body was the theatre remained obscure and beyond the reach of her mind, they were clear and intelligible to certain creatures belonging to the same natural kingdom as themselves, creatures to which the human mind has learned gradually to have recourse in order to understand what the body is saying to it, as 408 THE GUERMANTES WAY when a foreigner accosts us we try to find some one be- longing to his country who will act as interpreter. These 2an talk to our body, and tell us if its anger is serious or will soon be appeased. Cottard, whom we had called in to see my grandmother, and who had infuriated us by asking with a dry smile, the moment we told him that she was ill: “Ill? You’re sure it’s not what they call a diplo- matic’ illness?’ He tried to soothe his patient’s rest- lessness by a milk diet. But incessant bowls of milk soup gave her no relief, because my grandmother sprinkled them liberally with salt (the toxic effects of which were as yet, Widal not having made his discoveries, unknown). For, medicine being a compendium of the successive and contradictory mistakes of medical practitioners, when we summon the wisest of them to our aid, the chances are that we may be relying on a scientific truth the error of which will be recognised in a few years’ time. So that to believe in medicine would be the height of folly, if not to believe in it were not greater folly still, for from this mass of errors there have emerged in the course of time many truths. Cottard had told us to take her temperature. A thermometer was fetched. Throughout almost all its length it was clear of mercury. Scarcely could one make out, crouching at the foot of the tube, in its little cell, the silver salamander. It seemed dead. The glass reed was slipped into my grandmother’s mouth. We had no need to leave it there for long; the little sorceress had not been slow in casting her horoscope. We found her motionless, perched half-way up her tower, and declining to move, shewing us with precision the figure that we had asked of her, a figure with which all the most careful examination that my grandmother’s mind could have devoted to her- 409 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST self would have been incapable of furnishing her; 101 degrees. For the first time we felt some anxiety. We shook the thermometer well, to erase the ominous line, as thoug we were able thus to reduce the patient’s fever simul- taneously with the figure shewn on the scale. Alas, it was only too clear that the little sibyl, unreasoning as she was, had not pronounced judgment arbitrarily, for the next day, scarcely had the thermometer been inserted between my grandmother’s lips when almost at once, as though with a single bound, exulting in her certainty and in her intuition of a fact that to us was imperceptible, the little prophetess had come to a halt at the same point, in an implacable immobility, and pointed once again to that figure 1o1 with the tip of her gleaming wand. Nothing more did she tell us; in vain might we long, seek, pray, she was deaf to our entreaties; it seemed as though this were her final utter- ance, a warning and a menace. Then, in an attempt to con- strain her to modify her response, we had recourse to an- other creature of the same kingdom, but more potent, which is not content with questioning the body but can command it, a febrifuge of the same order as the modern aspirin, which had not then come into use. We had not shaken the thermometer down below 99.5, and hoped that it would not have to rise from there. We made my grand- mother swallow this drug and then replaced the ther- A410 THE GUERMANTES WAY friends with quinine, she may give me the order not to go up, once, ten times, twenty times. And then she will grow tired of telling me, I know her; get along with you. This won’t last for ever. And then you'll be a lot better off.” Thereupon my grandmother felt the presence within her of a creature which knew the human body better than herself, the presence of a contemporary of the races that have vanished from the earth, the presence of earth’s first inhabitant—long anterior to the creation of thinking man —she felt that aeonial ally who was sounding her, a little ‘roughly even, in the head, the heart, the elbow; he found out the weak places, organized everything for the pre- historic combat which began at once to be fought. In a ‘moment a trampled Python, the fever, was vanquished by ‘the potent chemical substance to which my grandmother, ‘across the series of kingdoms, reaching out beyond all ‘animal and vegetable life, would fain have been able to igive thanks. res she He moved by this glimpse ‘which she had caught, through the mists of so many ‘centuries, of a climate anterior to the creation even of plants. Meanwhile the thermometer, like a Weird Sister ‘momentarily vanquished by some more ancient god, held motionless her silver spindle. Alas! other inferior ‘creatures which man has trained to the chase of the ‘mysterious quarry which he cannot pursue within the ‘pathless forest of himself, reported cruelly to us every day a certain quantity of albumen, not large, but constant enough for it also to appear to bear relation to some persistent malady which we could not detect. Bergotte had shocked that scrupulous instinct in me which made me subordinate my intellect when he spoke to me of Dr. du Boulbon as of a physician who would not bore AII REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST me, who would discover methods of treatment which, how- ever strange they might appear, would adapt themselves to the singularity of my mind. But ideas transform them- selves in us, they overcome the resistance with which we at first meet them, and feed upon rich intellectual reserves which we did not know to have been prepared for them. So, as happens whenever anything we have heard said about some one whom we do not know has had the faculty of awakening in us the idea of great talent, of a sort of genius, in my inmost mind I gave Dr. du Boulbon. the benefit of that unlimited confidence which he inspires: in us who with an eye more penetrating than other men’s perceives the truth. I knew indeed that he was more of a specialist in nervous diseases, the man to whom Charcot’ before his death had predicted that he would reign su- preme in neurology and psychiatry. “ Ah! I don’t know about that. It’s quite possible,” put in Francoise, who was in the room, and heard Charcot’s name, as she heard du Boulbon’s, for the first time. But this in no way pre- vented her from saying “ It’s possible.” Her “ possibles ”, her “perhapses”, her “I don’t knows” were peculiarly © irritating at such a moment. One wanted to say to her: “ Naturally you didn’t know, since you haven’t the faintest ' idea of what we are talking about, how can you even say whether it’s possible or not; you know nothing about it. Anyhow, you can’t Say now that you don’t know what Charcot said to du Boulbon. You do know because we have just told you, and your ‘ perhapses’ and ‘ possibles ’ don’t come in, because it’s a fact.” In spite of this more special competence in cerebral and nervous matters, as I knew that du Boulbon was a great physician, a superior man, of a profound and inventive 412 THE GUERMANTES WAY atellect, I begged my mother to send for him, and the ope that, by a clear perception of the malady, he might verhaps cure it, carried the day finally over the fear that ve had of (if we called in a specialist) alarming my grand- nother. What decided my mother was the fact that, en- ouraged unconsciously by Cottard, my grandmother no onger went out of doors, and scarcely rose from her bed. m vain might she answer us in the words of Mme. de 3évigné’s letter on Mme. de la Fayette: “ Everyone said she was mad not to wish to go out. I said to these persons, so headstrong in their judgment: ‘Mme. de la Fayette s not mad!’ and I stuck to that. It has taken her death o prove that she was quite right not to go out.” Du Boulbon when he came decided against—if not Mme. de Sévigné, whom we did not quote to him—my grand- mother, at any rate. Instead of sounding her chest, fixing on her steadily his wonderful eyes, in which there was perhaps the illusion that he was making a profound scrutiny of his patient, or the desire to give her that illu- sion, which seemed spontaneous but must be mechanically produced, or else not to let her see that he was thinking of something quite different, or simply to obtain the mastery over her, he began talking about Bergotte. “TJ should think so, indeed, he’s magnificent, you are quite right to admire him. But which of his books do you prefer? Indeed! Well, perhaps that is the best after all. ‘In any case it is the best composed of his novels. Claire is quite charming in it; of his male characters which ‘appeals to you most?” I supposed at first that he was making her talk like this ‘about literature because he himself found medicine boring, perhaps also to display his breadth of mind and even, 413 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST with a more therapeutic aim, to restore confidence to hi: patient, to shew her that he was not alarmed, to take he mind from the state of her health. But afterwards with a preliminary rubbing of his hands, which he seeme to have some difficulty in wiping dry of the final hesita- tions which he himself might feel and of all the objections which we might have raised, looking down at my grand- mother with a lucid eye, boldly and as though he were at last upon solid ground, punctuating his words in a quiet, impressive tone, every inflexion of which bore the mark of intellect, he began. (His voice, for that matter, throughout this visit remained what it naturally was, caressing, And under his bushy brows his ironical eyes were full of kindness.) “You will be quite well, Madame, on the day—when it comes, and it rests entirely with you whether it comes to-day—on which you realise that there is nothing wrong with you, and resume your ordinary life. You tell me that you have not been taking your food, not going out? ” “But, sir, I have a temperature.” He laid a finger on her wrist. “Not just now, at any rate. Besides, what an excuse! Don’t you know that we keep out in the open air and jj overfeed tuberculous patients with temperatures of 102?” J “ But I have a little albumen as well.” 414 THE GUERMANTES WAY “You ought not to know anything about that. You aave what I have had occasion to call ‘ mental albumen’. We have all of us had, when we have not been very well, ittle albuminous phases which our doctor has done his yest to make permanent by calling our attention to them. For one disorder that doctors cure with drugs (as I am ‘old that they do occasionally succeed in doing) they sroduce a dozen others in healthy subjects by inoculating them with that pathogenic agent a thousand times more virulent than all the microbes in the world, the idea that gne is ill. A belief of that sort, which has a disturbing effect on any temperament, acts with special force on neurotic people. Tell them that a shut window is open behind their back, they will begin to sneeze; make them believe that you have put magnesia in their soup, they will be seized with colic; that their coffee is stronger than usual, they will mot sleep a wink all night. Do you imagine, Madame, that I needed to do any more than look into your eyes, listen to the way in which you express yourself, look, if I may say so, at this lady, your daughter, and at your grandson, who takes so much after you, to learn what was the matter with you!” “Your grandmother might perhaps go and sit, if the Doctor allows it, in some quiet path in the Champs- Elysées, near that laurel shrubbery where you used to play when you were little,” said my mother to me, thus indirectly consulting Dr. du Boulbon, her voice for that ‘reason assuming a tone of timid deference which it would ‘not have had if she had been addressing me alone. The ‘Doctor turned to my grandmother and, being apparently ‘as well-read in literature as in science, adjured her as follows: “Go to the Champs-Elysées, Madame, to the AIS REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST laurel shrubbery which your grandson loves. The laure you will find health-giving. It purifies. After he had ex. terminated the serpent Python, it was with a bough of laurel in his hand that Apollo made his entry into Delphi He sought thus to guard himself from the deadly germs of the venomous monster. So you see that the laurel is the most ancient, the most venerable and, I will add— what is of therapeutic as well as of prophylactic value— the most beautiful of antiseptics.” Inasmuch as a great part of what doctors know is taught them by the sick, they are easily led to believe that this knowledge which patients exhibit is common to them all, and they pride themselves on taking the patient of th moment by surprise with some remark picked up at a previous bedside. Thus it was with the superior smile of a Parisian who, in conversation with a peasant, might hope to surprise him by using suddenly a word of the local dialect that Dr. du Boulbon said to my grandmother: “ Probably a windy night will make you sleep when the strongest soporifics would have no effect.” “On the con- trary, Sir, when the wind blows I can never sleep at all.” But doctors are touchy people. “ Ach!” muttered du Boulbon, knitting his brows, as if some one had trodden on his toe, or as if my grandmother’s sleeplessness on stormy nights were a personal insult to himself. He had not, however, an undue opinion of himself, and since, in his character as a “ Superior” person, he felt himself bound not to put any faith in medicine, he quickly re- covered his philosophic serenity. My mother, in her passionate longing for reassurance from Bergotte’s friend, added in support of his verdict that a first cousin of my grandmother, who suffered from 416 THE GUERMANTES WAY “nervous complaint, had lain for seven years cloistered a her bedroom at Combray, without leaving her bed more han once or twice a week. “You see, Madame, I didn’t know that, and yet I ould have told you.” “But, Sir, I am not in the least like her; on the con- rary, my doctor complains that he cannot get me to tay in bed,” said my grandmother, whether because she vas a little annoyed by the doctor’s theories, or was inxious to submit to him any objections that might be ‘aised to them, in the hope that he would refute these ind that, after he had gone, she would no longer find iny doubt lurking in her own mind as to the accuracy of his encouraging diagnosis. “Why, naturally, Madame, you cannot have all the jorms of—if you'll excuse my saying so—mania at once; you have others, but not that particular one. Yesterday [ visited a home for neurasthenics. In the garden, I saw a man standing on a seat, motionless as a fakir, his neck dent in a position which must have been highly uncom- fortable. On my asking him what he was doing there, he replied, without turning his head, or moving a muscle: ‘You see, Doctor, I am extremely rheumatic and catch cold very easily; I have just been taking a lot of exercise, and while I was getting hot, like a fool, my neck was touching my flannels. If I move it away from my flannels now before letting myself cool down, I am certain to get a stiff neck, and possibly bronchitis.’ Which he would, in fact, have done. ‘ You’re a fine specimen of neurasthenia, that’s what you are,’ I told him. And do you know what argument he advanced to prove that I was mistaken? It was this; that while all the other patients in the place I 417 AA REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST had a mania for testing their weight, so much so that the weighing machine had to be padlocked so that they should not spend the whole day on it, he had to be lifted on te it bodily, so little did he care to be weighed. He prided himself on not sharing the mania of the others without thinking that he had also one of his own, and that it was this which saved him from the other. You must not b offended by the comparison, Madame, for the man wh ' dared not turn his neck for fear of catching a chill is th | greatest poet of our day. That poor maniac is the mos lofty intellect that I know. Submit to being called neurotic. You belong to that splendid and pitiable famil which is the salt of the earth. All the greatest things wel know have come to us from neurotics. It is they and they only who have founded religions and created great work _ of art. Never will the world be conscious of how mucht It owes to them, nor above all of what they have suffered _ in order to bestow their gifts on it. We enjoy fine music, beautiful pictures, a thousand exquisite things, but wel do not know what they cost those who wrought them in sleeplessness, tears, spasmodic laughter, rashes, asthma, eplilepsy, a terror of death which is worse than any of these, and which you perhaps have felt, Madame,” he} added with a smile at my grandmother, “ for confess now,} when I came into the room, you were not feeling very con-] fident. You thought that you were ill; dangerously ill,} perhaps. Heaven only knows what the disease was ofh which you thought you had detected the symptoms. And you were not mistaken; they were there. Neurosis hash an absolute genius for malingering. There is no illness which it cannot counterfeit perfectly. It will produce life- like imitations of the dilatations of dyspepsia, the sick- 418 THE GUERMANTES WAY nesses “of pregnancy, the broken rhythm of the cardiac, he feverishness of the consumptive. If it is capable of jeceiving the doctor, how should it fail to deceive the patient? No, no; you mustn’t think I’m making fun of your sufferings. I should not undertake to heal them inless I understood them thoroughly. And, well, they say shere’s no good confession unless it’s mutual. I have told you that without nervous trouble there can be no great artist. What is more,” he added, raising a solemn fore- finger, “there can be no great scientist either. I will go farther, and say that, unless he himself is subject to nervous trouble, he is not, I won’t say a good doctor, but I do say the right doctor to treat nervous troubles. In nervous pathology a doctor who doesn’t say too many foolish things is a patient half-cured, just as a critic is a poet who has stopped writing verse and a policeman a burglar who has retired from practice. I, Madame, I do not, like you, fancy myself to be suffering from album- inuria, I have not your nervous fear of food, nor of fresh air, but I can never go to sleep without getting out of bed at least twenty times to see if my door is shut. And in that home where I found the poet yesterday who would not move his neck, I had gone to secure a room, for—this is between ourselves—I spend my holidays there looking after myself when I have increased my own trouble by wearing myself out in the attempt to cure ‘other people.” “But do you want me to take a cure like that, Sir?” ‘came in a frightened voice from my grandmother. “Tt is not necessary, Madame. The symptoms which ‘you describe will vanish at my bidding. Besides, you have ‘with you a very efficient person whom I appoint as your 419 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST doctor from now onwards. That is your trouble itself, the super-activity of your nerves. Even if I knew how tc cure you of that, I should take good care not to. All I need do is to control it. I see on your table there one of Bergotte’s books. Cured of your neurosis you woul no longer care for it. Well, I might feel it my duty to substitute for the joys that it procures for you a nervou stability which would be quite incapable of giving yo those joys. But those joys themselves are a strong remedy; the strongest of all perhaps. No; I have nothing to say. against your nervous energy. All I ask is that it should listen to me; I leave you in its charge. It must reverse its engines. The force which it is now using to prevent you from getting up, from taking sufficient food, let it employ in making you eat, in making you read, in making you go out, and in distracting you in every possible way, You needn’t tell me that you are fatigued. Fatigue is the organic realisation of a preconceived idea. Begin by not thinking it. And if ever you have a slight indisposition,. which is a thing that may happen to anyone, it will be just as if you hadn’t it, for your nervous energy will have endowed you with what M. de Talleyrand, in an expres-} sion full of meaning, called ‘imaginary health ’. See, it has begun to cure you already, you have been sitting up in bed listening to me without once leaning back on your pillows; your eye is bright, your complexion is good, I have been talking to you for half an hour by the clock and } you have never noticed the time. Well, Madame, I shall now bid you good-day.” When, after seeing Dr. du Boulbon to the door, I re-} turned to the room in which my mother was by herself, the oppression that had been weighing on me for the 420 THE GUERMANTES WAY ast few weeks lifted, I felt that my mother was going ‘o break out with a cry of joy and would see my J°Y, felt that inability to endure the suspense of the coming noment at which a person is going to be overcome with ‘motion in our presence, which in another category is a ittle like the thrill of fear that goes through one when me knows that somebody is going to come in and startle one by a door that is still closed; I tried to speak to Mamma but my voice broke, and, bursting into tears, I stayed for a long time, my head on her shoulder, crying, ‘asting, accepting, relishing my grief, now that I knew shat it had departed from my life, as we like to exalt surselves by forming virtuous plans which circumstances do not permit us to put into execution. Francoise annoyed me by her refusal to share in our joy. She was quite over- come because there had just been a terrible scene between the lovesick footman and the tale-bearing porter. It had tequired the Duchess herself, in her unfailing benevolence, to intervene, restore an apparent calm to the household and forgive the footman. For she was a good mistress, and that would have been the ideal “ place” if only she didn’t listen to “stories ”’. During the last few days people had begun to hear of my grandmother’s illness and to inquire for news of her. Saint-Loup had written to me: “I do not wish to take advantage of a time when your dear grandmother is unwell to convey to you what is far more than mere reproaches, on a matter with which she has no concern. But I should not be speaking the truth were I to say to you, even out of politeness, that I shall ever forget the perfidy of your conduct, or that there can ever be any forgiveness for so scoundrelly a betrayal.” But some other 421 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST friends, supposing that my grandmother was not serious] ill (they may not even have known that she was jl] at all had asked me to meet them next day in the Champs Elysées, to go with them from there to pay a call togethe; ending up with a dinner in the country, the thought ¢f which appealed to me, I had no longer any reason to foreg these two pleasures. When my grandmother had bee told that it was now imperative, if she was to obey Dr du Boulbon’s orders, that she should go out as much a possible, she had herself at once suggested the Champs] Elysées. It would be easy for me to escort her there and, while she sat reading, to arrange with my friend; where I should meet them later; and I should still be iz time, if I made haste, to take the train with them te Ville d’Avray. When the time came, my grandmother dic not want to go out; she felt tired. But my mother, acting on du Boulbon’s instructions, had the strength of mind my grandmother was going to wear. Returning at that] moment from my morning walk I accompanied her intoj the shop. “ Is it your young master who brings you here,” 422 THE GUERMANTES WAY Fupien asked Francoise, “ is it you who are bringing him fo see me, or is it some good wind and fortune that wing you both?” For all his want of education, Jupien espected the laws of grammar as instinctively as M. de Juermantes, in spite of every effort, broke them. With I’rancoise gone and the cloak mended, it was time for ay grandmother to get ready. Having obstinately refused o let Mamma stay in the room with her, she took, left jo herself, an endless time over her dressing, and now hat I knew her to be quite well, with that strange indif- erence which we feel towards our relatives so long as hey are alive, which makes us put everyone else before hem, I felt it to be very selfish of her to take so long, o risk making me late when she knew that I had an ppointment with my friends and was dining at Ville VAvray. In my impatience I finally went downstairs [vithout waiting for her, after I had twice been told that he was just ready. At last she joined me, without apol- ygising to me, as she generally did, for having kept me jvaiting, flushed and bothered like a person who has come o a place in a hurry and has forgotten half her belong- ngs, just as I was reaching the half-opened glass door which, without warming them with it in the least, let n the liquid, throbbing, tepid air from the street (as though the sluices of a reservoir had been opened) be- ween the frigid walls of the passage. “Oh, dear, if you’re going to meet your friends I dught to have put on another cloak. I look rather poverty- itricken in this one.” _ I was startled to see her so flushed, and supposed that laving begun by making herself late she had had to hurry bver her dressing. When we left the cab at the end of 423 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST the Avenue Gabriel, in the Champs-Elysées, I saw my grandmother, without a word to me, turn aside and mak, her way to the little old pavilion with its green trellis at the door of which I had once waited for Francoise. Thi same park-keeper who had been standing there then wa; still talking to Frangoise’s “ Marquise” when, followin my grandmother who, doubtless because she was feeling sick, had her hand in front of her mouth, I climbed th steps of that little rustic theatre, erected there among thi gardens. At the entrance, as in those circus booths wher the clown, dressed for the ring and smothered in flour stands at the door and takes the money himself for the seats, the “ Marquise”, at the receipt of custom, was stil there in her place with her huge, uneven face smearec with a coarse plaster and her little bonnet of red flow. ers and black lace surmounting her auburn wig. But ] do not suppose that she recognised me. The park-keeper abandoning his watch over the greenery, with the coloui of which his uniform had been designed to harmonise was talking to her, on a chair by her side. “So you're still here?” he was saying. “ You don’ think of retiring?” “And what have I to retire for, Sir? Will you kindly tell me where I shall be better off than here, where 1 should live more at my ease, and with every comfort! And then there’s all the coming and going, plenty of distraction; my little Paris, I call it; my customers keep me in touch with everything that’s going on. Just te give you an example, there’s one of them who went out not more than five minutes ago; he’s a magistrate, in the very highest position there is. Very well, Sir,” she cried with ardour, as though prepared to maintain the 424. —_ THE GUERMANTES WAY truth of this assertion by violence, should the agent of civic authority shew any sign of challenging its accuracy, “for the last eight years, do you follow me, every day God has made, regularly on the stroke of three he’s ‘been here, always polite, never saying one word louder ‘than another, never making any mess; and he stays half an hour and more to read his papers and do his little jobs. There was one day he didn’t come. I never ‘noticed it at the time, but that evening, all of a sudden I said to myself: ‘Why, that gentleman never came to- _day; perhaps he’s dead!’ And that gave me a regular turn, you know, because, of course, I get quite fond of | people when they behave nicely. And so I was very glad when I saw him come in again next day, and I said to him, I did: ‘I hope there was nothing wrong | yesterday, Sir?’ Then he told me that it was his wife that had died, and he’d been so put out, poor gentleman, what with one thing and another, he hadn’t been able to come. He had that really sad look, you know, people have when they’ve been married five-and-twenty years, and then the parting, but he seemed pleased, all the same, to be back here. You could see that all his little habits had been quite upset. I did what I could to make him - feel at home. I said to him: ‘Y mustn’t let go of things, Sir. Just come here the same as before, it will be a little distraction for you in your sorrow.’” The “ Marquise” resumed a gentler tone, for she had observed that the guardian of groves and lawns was listening to her complacently and with no thought of con- tradiction, keeping harmlessly in its scabbard a sword _ which looked more like a horticultural implement or some symbol of a garden-god. 425 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST “And besides,” she went on, “I choose my customers, I don’t let everyone into my little parlours, as I call them, And doesn’t the place just look like a parlour with all my flowers? Such friendly customers I have; there’s al- ways some one or other brings me a spray of nice lilac, or jessamine or roses; my favourite flowers, roses are.” The thought that we were perhaps despised by this lady because we never brought any sprays of lilac or fine roses to her bower made me redden, and in the hope of making a bodily escape—or of being condemned only by default—from an adverse judgment, I moved towards the exit. But it is not always in this world the people who brings us fine roses to whom we are most friendly, for the “ Marquise ”, thinking that I was bored, turned to me: “You wouldn’t like me to open a little place for you!” And, on my declining: “No? You’re sure you won’t?” she persisted, smiling. “Well, just as you please. You’re welcome to it, but I know quite well, not having to pay for a thing won’t make you want to do it if you don’t want to.” At this moment a Shabbily dressed woman hurried into the place who seemed to be feeling precisely the want in question. But she did not belong to the “ Marquise’s ” world, for the latter, with the ferocity of a snob, flung at her: “Pve nothing disengaged, Ma’am.” “Will they be long?” asked the poor lady, reddening beneath the yellow flowers in her hat. “Well, Ma’am, if you'll take my advice, you'll try somewhere else; you see, there are stil] these two gentle- men waiting, and I’ve only one closet; the others are out of order.” 426 THE GUERMANTES WAY “Not much money there,” she explained when the other had gone. “ It’s not the sort we want here, either; they’re not clean, don’t treat the place with respect, it would be your humble here that would have to spend the next hour cleaning up after her ladyship. ’m not sorry to lose her penny.” Finally my grandmother emerged, and feeling that she probably would not seek to atone by a lavish gratuity for the indiscretion that she had shewn by remaining so long inside, I beat a retreat, so as not to have to share in the scorn which the “ Marquise”? would no doubt heap on her, and began strolling along a path, but slowly, so that my grandmother should not have to hurry to over- take me; as presently she did. I expected her to begin: “Tam afraid I’ve kept you waiting; I hope you'll still be in time for your friends,” but she did not utter a single word, so much so that, feeling a little hurt, I was dis- inclined to speak first; until looking up at her I noticed that as she walked beside me she kept her face turned the other way. I was afraid that her heart might be troubling her again. I studied her more carefully and was struck by the disjointedness of her gait. Her hat was crooked, her cloak stained; she had the confused and worried look, the flushed, slightly dazed face of a person who has just been knocked down by a carriage or pulled out of a ditch. “TI was afraid you were feeling sick, Grandmamma; are you feeling better now?” I asked her. Probably she thought that it would be impossible for her, without alarming me, not to make some answer. “T heard the whole of her conversation with the keeper,” she told me. “Could anything have been more 427 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST typical of the Guermantes, or the Verdurins and their little circle? Heavens, what fine language she put it all in!” And she quoted, ‘with deliberate application, this sentence from her own special Marquise, Mme. de Sevigné: “As I listened to them I thought that they were preparing for me the pleasures of a farewell.” Such was the speech that she made me, a speech into which she had put all her critical delicacy, her love of quotations, her memory of the classics, more thoroughly even than she would naturally have done, and as though to prove that she retained possession of all these faculties. But I guessed rather than heard what she said, so in- audible was the voice in which she muttered her sentences, clenching her teeth more than could be accounted for by the fear of being sick again. “Come!” I said lightly, so as not to seem to be taking her illness too seriously, “since your heart is bothering you, shall we go home now? I don’t want to trundle a grandmother with indigestion about the Champs-Elysées.” “TI didn’t like to suggest it, because of your friends,” she replied. “ Poor boy! But if you don’t mind, I think it would be wiser.” I was afraid of her noticing the strange way in which she uttered these words. “Come!” I said to her sharply, “you mustn’t tire yourself talking; if your heart is bad, it’s silly; wait till we get home.” She smiled at me sorrowfully and gripped my hand. 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