In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV (53 page)

“By the way, Charlus,” said Mme Verdurin, who was beginning to grow familiar, “you don’t know of any penniless old nobleman in your Faubourg who would come to me as porter?” “Why, yes . . . why, yes,” replied M. de Charlus with a genial smile, “but I don’t advise it.” “Why not?” “I should be afraid for your sake that the more elegant visitors would go no further than the lodge.” This was the first skirmish between them. Mme Verdurin barely noticed it. There were to be others, alas, in Paris. M. de Charlus remained glued to his chair. He could not, moreover, restrain a faint smile on seeing how his favourite maxims as to aristocratic prestige and bourgeois cowardice were confirmed by the so easily won submission of Mme Verdurin. The Mistress appeared not at all surprised by the Baron’s posture, and if she left him it was only because she had been perturbed by seeing me taken up by M. de Cambremer. But first of all, she wished to clear up the mystery of M. de Charlus’s relations with Comtesse Molé. “You told me that you knew Mme de Molé. Does that mean you go there?” she asked, giving to the words “go there” the sense of being received there, of having received permission from the lady to go and call on her. M. de Charlus replied with an inflexion of disdain, an affectation of precision and in a sing-song tone: “Yes, sometimes.” This “sometimes” inspired doubts in Mme Verdurin, who asked: “Have you ever met the Duc de Guermantes there?” “Ah! that I don’t remember.” “Oh!” said Mme Verdurin, “you don’t know the Duc de Guermantes?” “And how could I not know him?” replied M. de Charlus, his lips curving in a smile. This smile was ironical; but as the Baron was afraid of letting a gold tooth be seen, he checked it with a reverse movement of his lips, so that the resulting sinuosity was that of a smile of benevolence. “Why do you say: ‘How could I not know him?’ ” “Because he is my brother,” said M. de Charlus carelessly, leaving Mme Verdurin plunged in stupefaction and uncertain whether her guest was making fun of her, was a natural son, or a son by another marriage. The idea that the brother of the Duc de Guermantes might be called Baron de Charlus never entered her head. She bore down upon me. “I heard M. de Cambremer invite you to dinner just now. It has nothing to do with me, you understand. But for your own sake, I very much hope you won’t go. For one thing, the place is infested with bores. Oh, if you like dining with provincial counts and marquises whom nobody knows, you’ll have all you could wish.” “I think I shall be obliged to go there once or twice. I’m not altogether free, however, for I have a young cousin whom I can’t leave by herself” (I felt that this fictitious kinship made it easier for me to take Albertine about), “but in the case of the Cambremers, as I’ve already introduced her to them . . .” “You shall do just as you please. One thing I can tell you: it’s extremely unhealthy; when you’ve caught pneumonia, or a nice little chronic rheumatism, what good will that do you?” “But isn’t the place itself very pretty?” “Mmmmyesss . . . If you like. Frankly, I must confess that I’d far sooner have the view from here over this valley. In any case, I wouldn’t have taken the other house if they’d paid us because the sea air is fatal to M. Verdurin. If your cousin is at all delicate . . . But you yourself are delicate, I believe . . . you have fits of breathlessness. Very well! You shall see. Go there once, and you won’t sleep for a week after it; but it’s not my business.” And regardless of the inconsistency with what had gone before, she went on: “If it would amuse you to see the house, which is not bad, pretty is too strong a word, still it’s amusing with its old moat and its old drawbridge, as I shall have to sacrifice myself and dine there once, very well, come that day, I shall try to bring all my little circle, then it will be quite nice. The day after tomorrow we’re going to Harambouville in the carriage. It’s a magnificent drive, and the cider is delicious. Come with us. You, Brichot, you shall come too. And you too, Ski. It will make a party which, as a matter of fact, my husband must have arranged already. I don’t know whom all he has invited. Monsieur de Charlus, are you one of them?”

The Baron, who had not heard the whole speech and did not know that she was talking of an excursion to Harambouville, gave a start. “A strange question,” he murmured in a sardonic tone that nettled Mme Verdurin. “Anyhow,” she said to me, “before you dine with the Cambremers, why not bring your cousin here? Does she like conversation, and intelligent people? Is she agreeable? Yes, very well then. Bring her with you. The Cambremers aren’t the only people in the world. I can understand their being glad to invite her, they must find it difficult to get anyone. Here she will have plenty of fresh air, and lots of clever men. In any case, I’m counting on you not to fail me next Wednesday. I heard you were having a tea-party at Rivebelle with your cousin, and M. de Charlus, and I forget who else. You should arrange to bring the whole lot on here, it would be nice if you all came in a body. It’s the easiest thing in the world to get here, and the roads are charming; if you like I can send down for you. I can’t imagine what you find attractive in Rivebelle, it’s infested with mosquitoes. Perhaps you’re thinking of the reputation of the local pancakes. My cook makes them far better. I’ll give you some Norman pancakes, the real article, and shortbread; just let me show you. Ah! if you want the sort of filth they give you at Rivebelle, you won’t get it from me, I don’t poison my guests, Monsieur, and even if I wished to, my cook would refuse to make such unspeakable muck and would give in his notice. Those pancakes you get down there, you can’t tell what they’re made of. I knew a poor girl who got peritonitis from them, which carried her off in three days. She was only seventeen. It was sad for her poor mother,” added Mme Verdurin with a mournful air beneath the spheres of her temples charged with experience and suffering. “However, go and have tea at Rivebelle if you enjoy being fleeced and flinging money out of the window. But one thing I beg of you—it’s a confidential mission I’m entrusting you with—on the stroke of six bring all your party here, don’t allow them to go straggling away by themselves. You can bring whom you please. I wouldn’t say that to everybody. But I’m sure your friends are nice, I can see at once that we understand one another. Apart from the little nucleus, there are some very agreeable people coming next Wednesday, as it happens. You don’t know little Mme de Longpont? She’s charming, and so witty, not in the least snobbish, you’ll find you’ll like her immensely. And she’s going to bring a whole troupe of friends too,” Mme Verdurin added to show me that this was the right thing to do and encourage me by the other’s example. “We shall see which of you has most influence and brings most people, Barbe de Longpont or you. And then I believe somebody’s going to bring Bergotte,” she added vaguely, this attendance of a celebrity being rendered far from likely by a paragraph which had appeared in the papers that morning to the effect that the great writer’s health was causing grave anxiety. “Anyhow, you’ll see that it will be one of my most successful Wednesdays. I don’t want to have any boring women. You mustn’t judge by this evening, which has been a complete failure. Don’t try to be polite, you can’t have been more bored than I was, I myself thought it was deadly. It won’t always be like tonight, you know! I’m not thinking of the Cambremers, who are impossible, but I’ve known society people who were supposed to be agreeable, and compared with my little nucleus they didn’t exist. I heard you say that you thought Swann clever. I must say, to my mind it’s greatly exaggerated, but without even speaking of the character of the man, which I’ve always found fundamentally antipathetic, sly, underhand, I often had him to dinner on Wednesdays. Well, you can ask the others, even compared with Brichot, who is far from being a genius, who’s a good secondary schoolmaster whom I got into the Institute all the same, Swann was simply nowhere. He was so dull!” And as I expressed a contrary opinion: “It’s the truth. I don’t want to say a word against him since he was your friend, indeed he was very fond of you, he spoke to me about you in the most charming way, but ask the others here if he ever said anything interesting at our dinners. That, after all, is the test. Well, I don’t know why it was, but Swann, in my house, never seemed to come off, one got nothing out of him. And yet the little he had he picked up here.” I assured her that he was highly intelligent. “No, you only thought that because you didn’t know him as long as I did. Really, one got to the end of him very soon. I was always bored to death by him.” (Translation: “He went to the La Trémoïlles and the Guermantes and knew that I didn’t.”) “And I can put up with anything except being bored. That I cannot stand!” Her horror of boredom was now the reason upon which Mme Verdurin relied to explain the composition of the little group. She did not yet entertain duchesses because she was incapable of enduring boredom, just as she was incapable of going for a cruise because of sea-sickness. I thought to myself that what Mme Verdurin said was not entirely false, and, whereas the Guermantes would have declared Brichot to be the stupidest man they had ever met, I remained uncertain whether he was not in reality superior, if not to Swann himself, at least to the people endowed with the wit of the Guermantes who would have had the good taste to avoid and the delicacy to blush at his pedantic pleasantries; I asked myself the question as though the nature of intelligence might be to some extent clarified by the answer that I might give, and with the earnestness of a Christian influenced by Port-Royal when he considers the problem of Grace.

“You’ll see,” Mme Verdurin continued, “when one has society people together with people of real intelligence, people of our set, that’s where one has to see them—the wittiest society man in the kingdom of the blind is only one-eyed here. Besides, he paralyses the others, who don’t feel at home any longer. So much so that I’m inclined to wonder whether, instead of attempting mixtures that spoil everything, I shan’t start special evenings confined to the bores so as to have the full benefit of my little nucleus. However: you’re coming again with your cousin. That’s settled. Good. At any rate you’ll get something to eat here, the pair of you. Féterne is starvation corner. Oh, by the way, if you like rats, go there at once, you’ll get as many as you want. And they’ll keep you there as long as you’re prepared to stay. Why, you’ll die of hunger. When I go there, I shall dine before I start. To make it a bit gayer, you must come here first. We shall have a good high tea, and supper when we get back. Do you like apple-tarts? Yes, very well then, our chef makes the best in the world. You see I was quite right when I said you were made to live here. So come and stay. There’s far more room here than you’d think. I don’t mention it, so as not to let myself in for bores. You might bring your cousin to stay. She would get a change of air from Balbec. With the air here, I maintain that I can cure incurables. My word, I’ve cured some, and not only this time. For I’ve stayed near here before—a place I discovered and got for a mere song, and which had a lot more character than their Raspelière. I can show it to you if we go for a drive together. But I admit that even here the air is really invigorating. Still, I don’t want to say too much about it, or the whole of Paris would begin to take a fancy to my little corner. That’s always been my luck. Anyhow, give your cousin my message. We’ll put you in two nice rooms looking over the valley. You ought to see it in the morning, with the sun shining through the mist! By the way, who is this Robert de Saint-Loup you were speaking of?” she said anxiously, for she had heard that I was to pay him a visit at Doncières, and was afraid that he might make me defect. “Why not bring him here instead, if he’s not a bore. I’ve heard of him from Morel; I fancy he’s one of his greatest friends,” she added, lying in her teeth, for Saint-Loup and Morel were not even aware of one another’s existence. But having heard that Saint-Loup knew M. de Charlus, she supposed that it was through the violinist, and wished to appear in the know. “He’s not taking up medicine, by any chance, or literature? You know, if you want any help about examinations, Cottard can do anything, and I make what use of him I please. As for the Academy later on—for I suppose he’s not old enough yet—I have several votes in my pocket. Your friend would find himself on friendly soil here, and it might amuse him perhaps to see over the house. Doncières isn’t much fun. Anyhow, do just as you please, whatever suits you best,” she concluded, without insisting, so as not to appear to be trying to know people of noble birth, and because she always maintained that the system by which she governed the faithful, to wit despotism, was named liberty. “Why, what’s the matter with you,” she said, at the sight of M. Verdurin who, gesticulating impatiently, was making for the wooden terrace that ran along the side of the drawing-room above the valley, like a man who is bursting with rage and needs fresh air. “Has Saniette been irritating you again? But since you know what an idiot he is, you must resign yourself and not work yourself up into such a state . . . I hate it when he gets like this,” she said to me, “because it’s bad for him, it sends the blood to his head. But I must say that one would need the patience of an angel at times to put up with Saniette, and one must always remember that it’s an act of charity to have him in the house. For my part I must admit that he’s so gloriously silly that I can’t help enjoying him. I dare say you heard what he said after dinner: ‘I can’t play whist, but I can play the piano.’ Isn’t it superb? It’s positively colossal, and incidentally quite untrue, for he’s incapable of doing either. But my husband, beneath his rough exterior, is very sensitive, very kind-hearted, and Saniette’s self-centred way of always thinking about the effect he’s going to make drives him crazy . . . Come, dear, calm down, you know Cottard told you that it was bad for your liver. And I’m the one who’ll have to bear the brunt of it all. Tomorrow Saniette will come back and have his little fit of hysterics. Poor man, he’s very ill. But still, that’s no reason why he should kill other people. And then, even at moments when he’s really suffering, when one would like to comfort him, his silliness hardens one’s heart. He’s really too stupid. You ought to tell him quite politely that these scenes make you both ill, and he’d better not come back, and since that’s what he’s most afraid of, it will have a calming effect on his nerves,” Mme Verdurin concluded.