In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV (12 page)

“And who in the world is that?” Mme de Guermantes exclaimed, on seeing a little lady with a slightly lost air, in a black dress so simple that you would have taken her for a pauper, make her a deep bow, as did also her husband. She did not recognise the lady and, in her insolent way, drew herself up as though offended and stared at her without responding: “Who is that person, Basin?” she asked with an air of astonishment, while M. de Guermantes, to atone for Oriane’s impoliteness, bowed to the lady and shook hands with her husband. “Why, it’s Mme de Chaussepierre, you were most impolite.” “I’ve never heard of Chaussepierre.” “Old mother Chanlivault’s nephew.” “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Who is the woman, and why does she bow to me?” “But you know perfectly well; she’s Mme de Charleval’s daughter, Henriette Montmorency.” “Oh, but I knew her mother quite well. She was charming, extremely intelligent. What made her go and marry all these people I’ve never heard of? You say she calls herself Mme de Chaussepierre?” she asked, spelling out the name with a questioning look, as though she were afraid of getting it wrong. The Duke looked at her sternly. “It’s not so ridiculous as you appear to think, to be called Chaussepierre! Old Chaussepierre was the brother of the aforesaid Chanlivault, of Mme de Sennecour and of the Vicomtesse du Merlerault. They’re excellent people.” “Oh, do stop,” cried the Duchess, who, like a lion-tamer, never cared to give the impression of being intimidated by the devouring glare of the animal. “Basin, you are the joy of my life. I can’t imagine where you unearthed those names, but I congratulate you on them. If I did not know Chaussepierre, I have at least read Balzac—you’re not the only one—and I’ve even read Labiche. I can appreciate Chanlivault, I do not object to Charleval, but I must confess that du Merlerault is a masterpiece. However, I must admit that Chaussepierre is not bad either. You must have gone about collecting them, it’s not possible. You mean to write a book,” she added, turning to me, “you ought to make a note of Charleval and du Merlerault. You won’t find anything better.” “He’ll find himself in the dock, and will go to prison; you’re giving him very bad advice, Oriane.” “I hope, for his own sake, that he has younger people than me at his disposal if he wishes to ask for bad advice, especially if he means to follow it. But if he means to do nothing worse than write a book!”

At some distance from us, a wonderful, proud young woman stood out delicately from the throng in a white dress, all diamonds and tulle. Mme de Guermantes watched her talking to a whole group of people fascinated by her grace.

“Your sister is the belle of the ball, as usual; she is charming tonight,” she said, as she took a chair, to the Prince de Chimay who was passing.

Colonel de Froberville (the General of that name was his uncle) came and sat down beside us, as did M. de Bréauté, while M. de Vaugoubert, after hovering about us (by an excess of politeness which he maintained even when playing tennis, thus, by dint of asking leave of the eminent personages present before hitting the ball, invariably losing the game for his partner), returned to M. de Charlus (until that moment almost concealed by the huge skirt of the Comtesse Molé, whom he professed to admire above all other women), just as several members of the latest diplomatic mission to Paris chanced to be greeting the Baron. At the sight of a young secretary with a particularly intelligent look, M. de Vaugoubert fastened on M. de Charlus a smile in which a single question visibly shone. M. de Charlus would perhaps readily have compromised someone else, but he was exasperated to feel himself compromised by a smile on another person’s lips which could have but one meaning. “I know absolutely nothing about the matter. I beg you to keep your curiosity to yourself. It leaves me more than cold. Besides, in this instance, you are making a mistake of the first order. I believe this young man to be absolutely the opposite.” Here M. de Charlus, irritated at being thus given away by a fool, was not speaking the truth. Had the Baron been correct, the secretary would have been the exception to the rule in that embassy. It was in fact composed of widely different personalities, many of them extremely second-rate, so that, if one sought to discover what could have been the motive of the selection that had brought them together, the only one possible seemed to be inversion. By setting at the head of this little diplomatic Sodom an ambassador on the contrary enamoured of women with the comic exaggeration of a revue compère, who drilled his battalion of transvestites like clockwork, the authorities seemed to have been obeying the law of contrasts. In spite of what he had beneath his nose, he did not believe in inversion. He gave an immediate proof of this by marrying his sister to a chargé d’affaires whom he believed, quite mistakenly, to be a womaniser. After this he became rather a nuisance and was soon replaced by a new Excellency, who ensured the homogeneity of the party. Other embassies sought to rival this one, but could never dispute the prize (as in the
concours général
, where a certain
lycée
always heads the list), and more than ten years had to pass before, heterogeneous attaches having been introduced into this too perfect unit, another could at last wrest the disreputable palm from it and march out in front.

Reassured as regards her fear of having to talk to Swann, Mme de Guermantes now felt merely curious as to the subject of the conversation he had had with their host. “Do you know what it was about?” the Duke asked M. de Bréauté. “I did hear,” the other replied, “that it was about a little play which the writer Bergotte produced at their house. It was a delightful show, I gather. But it seems the actor made himself up to look like Gilbert, whom, as it happens, Master Bergotte had intended to depict.” “Oh, I should have loved to see Gilbert taken off,” said the Duchess with a dreamy smile. “It was about this little performance,” M. de Bréauté went on, thrusting forward his rodent’s jaw, “that Gilbert demanded an explanation from Swann, who merely replied what everyone thought very witty: ‘Why, not at all, it wasn’t the least bit like you, you are far funnier!’ It appears, though,” M. de Bréauté continued, “that the little play was quite delightful. Mme Molé was there, and she was immensely amused.” “What, does Mme Molé go there?” said the Duchess in astonishment. “Ah! that must be Mémé’s doing. That’s what always happens in the end to that sort of house. One fine day everybody begins to flock to it, and I, who have deliberately remained aloof on principle, find myself left to mope alone in my corner.” Already, since M. de Bréauté’s speech, the Duchesse de Guermantes (with regard, if not to Swann’s house, at least to the hypothesis of encountering him at any moment) had, as we see, adopted a fresh point of view. “The explanation that you have given us,” said Colonel de Froberville to M. de Bréauté, “is entirely unfounded. I have good reason to know. The Prince purely and simply gave Swann a dressing-down and begged to instruct him, as our fathers used to say, that he was not to show his face in the house again, in view of the opinions he flaunts. And, to my mind, my uncle Gilbert was right a thousand times over, not only in giving Swann a piece of his mind—he ought to have broken off relations with a professed Dreyfusard six months ago.”

Poor M. de Vaugoubert, from being a too dawdling tennis-player having now become a mere inert tennis-ball which is driven to and fro without compunction, found himself projected towards the Duchesse de Guermantes, to whom he made obeisance. He was none too well received, Oriane living in the belief that all the diplomats—or politicians—of her world were nincompoops.

M. de Froberville had inevitably benefited from the preferential position that had of late been accorded to military men in the social world. Unfortunately, if the wife of his bosom was a quite authentic relative of the Guermantes, she was also an extremely poor one, and, as he himself had lost his fortune, they went scarcely anywhere, and were the sort of people who were apt to be overlooked except on big occasions, when they had the good fortune to bury or marry a relation. Then, they did really enter into communion with high society, like those nominal Catholics who approach the altar rails only once a year. Their material situation would indeed have been deplorable had not Mme de Saint-Euverte, faithful to her affection for the late General de Froberville, done everything to help the household, providing frocks and entertainments for the two girls. But the Colonel, though generally considered a good fellow, was lacking in the spirit of gratitude. He was envious of the splendours of a benefactress who celebrated them herself without pause or restraint. The annual garden-party was for him, his wife and children a marvellous pleasure which they would not have missed for all the gold in the world, but a pleasure poisoned by the thought of the joy of self-satisfied pride that Mme de Saint-Euverte derived from it. The accounts of this garden-party in the newspapers, which, after giving a detailed report, would add with Machiavellian guile: “We shall come back to this brilliant gathering,” the complementary details about the women’s clothes, appearing for several days in succession—all this was so painful to the Frobervilles that although they were cut off from most pleasures and knew that they could count upon the pleasure of this one afternoon, they were moved every year to hope that bad weather would spoil the success of the party, to consult the barometer and to anticipate with delight the threatenings of a storm that might ruin everything.

“I shall not discuss politics with you, Froberville,” said M. de Guermantes, “but, so far as Swann is concerned, I can tell you frankly that his conduct towards ourselves has been beyond words. Although he was originally introduced into society by ourselves and the Duc de Chartres, they tell me now that he is openly Dreyfusard. I should never have believed it of him, an epicure, a man of practical judgment, a collector, a connoisseur of old books, a member of the Jockey, a man who enjoys the respect of all, who knows all the good addresses and used to send us the best port you could wish to drink, a dilettante, a family man. Ah! I feel badly let down. I don’t mind about myself, it’s generally agreed that I’m only an old fool whose opinion counts for nothing, mere ragtag and bobtail, but if only for Oriane’s sake, he ought not to have done that, he should have openly disavowed the Jews and the partisans of the accused.

“Yes, after the friendship my wife has always shown him,” went on the Duke, who evidently considered that to denounce Dreyfus as guilty of high treason, whatever opinion one might hold in one’s heart of hearts as to his guilt, constituted a sort of thank-offering for the manner in which one had been received in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, “he ought to have dissociated himself. For, you can ask Oriane, she had a real friendship for him.”

The Duchess, thinking that a quiet, ingenuous tone would give a more dramatic and sincere value to her words, said in a schoolgirl voice, as though simply letting the truth fall from her lips, and merely allowing a slightly melancholy expression to becloud her eyes: “Yes, it’s true, I have no reason to conceal the fact that I did feel a sincere affection for Charles!”

“There, you see, I don’t have to make her say it. And after that, he carries his ingratitude to the point of being a Dreyfusard!”

“Talking of Dreyfusards,” I said, “it appears that Prince Von is one.”

“Ah, I’m glad you reminded me of him,” exclaimed M. de Guermantes, “I was forgetting that he had asked me to dine with him on Monday. But whether he’s a Dreyfusard or not is entirely immaterial to me, since he’s a foreigner. I don’t give two straws for his opinion. With a Frenchman it’s another matter. It’s true that Swann is a Jew. But, until today—forgive me, Froberville—I have always been foolish enough to believe that a Jew can be a Frenchman, I mean an honourable Jew, a man of the world. Now, Swann was that in every sense of the word. Well, now he forces me to admit that I was mistaken, since he has taken the side of this Dreyfus (who, guilty or not, never moved in his world, whom he wouldn’t ever have met) against a society that had adopted him, had treated him as one of its own. There’s no question about it, we were all of us prepared to vouch for Swann, I would have answered for his patriotism as for my own. And this is how he repays us! I must confess that I should never have expected such a thing from him. I thought better of him. He was a man of intelligence (in his own line, of course). I know that he had already been guilty of the aberration of that shameful marriage. And by the way, do you know someone who was really hurt by Swann’s marriage? My wife. Oriane often has what I might call an affectation of insensibility. But at heart she feels things with extraordinary keenness.” (Mme de Guermantes, delighted by this analysis of her character, listened to it with a modest air but did not utter a word, from a scrupulous reluctance to acquiesce in it but principally from fear of cutting it short. M. de Guermantes might have gone on talking for an hour on this subject and she would have sat as still, or even stiller, than if she had been listening to music.) “Well, I remember when she heard of Swann’s marriage she was genuinely hurt. She felt that it was very bad on the part of someone to whom we had shown so much friendship. She was very fond of Swann; she was deeply grieved. Am I not right, Oriane?”

Mme de Guermantes felt that she ought to reply to so direct a challenge on a point of fact which would enable her unobtrusively to confirm the tribute which she felt had come to an end. In a shy and simple tone, and with an air all the more studied in that it sought to appear “heartfelt,” she said with a meek reserve: “It’s true, Basin is quite right.”

“But still, that wasn’t quite the same thing as this. After all, love is love, although, in my opinion, it ought to confine itself within certain limits. I could excuse a young fellow, a snotty-nosed youth, for letting himself be carried away by utopian ideas. But Swann, a man of intelligence, of proved refinement, a fine judge of pictures, an intimate friend of the Duc de Chartres, of Gilbert himself!”

The tone in which M. de Guermantes said this was, incidentally, quite inoffensive, without a trace of the vulgarity which he too often showed. He spoke with a slightly indignant melancholy, but his whole manner exuded that gentle gravity which constitutes the broad and unctuous charm of certain portraits by Rembrandt, that of the Burgomaster Six, for example. One felt that for the Duke there was no question of the immorality of Swann’s conduct with regard to the “Affair,” so self-evident was it; it caused him the grief of a father who sees one of his sons, for whose education he has made the greatest sacrifices, deliberately ruin the magnificent position he has created for him and dishonour a respected name by escapades which the principles or prejudices of his family cannot allow. It is true that M. de Guermantes had not displayed so profound and pained an astonishment when he learned that Saint-Loup was a Dreyfusard. But, for one thing, he regarded his nephew as a young man gone astray, from whom nothing would be surprising until he began to mend his ways, whereas Swann was what M. de Guermantes called “a level-headed man, a man occupying a position in the front rank.” Moreover, and above all, a considerable period of time had elapsed during which, if, from the historical point of view, events had to some extent seemed to justify the Dreyfusard thesis, the anti-Dreyfusard opposition had greatly increased in violence, and from being purely political had become social. It was now a question of militarism, of patriotism, and the waves of anger that had been stirred up in society had had time to gather the force which they never have at the beginning of a storm. “Don’t you see,” M. de Guermantes went on, “even from the point of view of his beloved Jews, since he is absolutely determined to stand by them, Swann has made a bloomer of incalculable significance. He has proved that they’re all secretly united and are somehow forced to give their support to anyone of their own race, even if they don’t know him personally. It’s a public menace. We’ve obviously been too easy-going, and the mistake Swann is making will create all the more stir since he was respected, not to say received, and was almost the only Jew that anyone knew. People will say:
Ab uno disce omnes
.” (Satisfaction at having hit at the right moment upon so apt a quotation alone brightened with a proud smile the melancholy countenance of the betrayed nobleman.)