In Search of Lost Time (43 page)

– Do you see M. Swann often? asked Mme Verdurin.

– Oh no, answered M. de Forcheville, and since in order to get to
know Odette more easily he wanted to be pleasant to Swann, he attempted to seize this opportunity of flattering him by talking about his distinguished friends, but talking about them as a man of the world, in the tone of an affectionate critic and not as though he were congratulating him as on an unhoped-for success: ‘Isn't it so, Swann? I never see you. Anyway, how could I ever see him? The man is always hanging about with the La Trémoïlles,
⁵⁵
with the Laumes, people like that!…' An imputation especially false, since, for a year now, Swann had hardly gone anywhere but to the Verdurins'. But the mere name of a person they did not know was greeted by a reproving silence on their part. M. Verdurin, afraid of the painful impression that these names of ‘bores', especially when tactlessly hurled thus in the faces of all the faithful, must have produced on his wife, secretly cast at her a glance full of worried solicitude. He saw then that in her resolution not to take action, not to have been affected by the news that had just been announced to her, not merely to remain dumb but to have been deaf as well, the way we pretend to be deaf when a friend who has offended us tries to slip into the conversation an excuse which we would seem to accept if we listened to it without protesting, or when someone utters in our presence the forbidden name of an ingrate, Mme Verdurin, so that her silence would not seem to be a form of consent, but rather the ignorant silence of an inanimate object, had suddenly divested her face of all life, all mobility; her prominent forehead was now merely a lovely study in the round, which the name of those La Trémoïlles at whose house Swann was always hanging about had not been able to penetrate; her slightly wrinkled nose revealed an indentation that seemed copied from life. Her half-open mouth seemed about to speak. She was now merely a lost wax, a plaster mask, a model for a monument, a bust for the Palais de l'Industrie
⁵⁶
in front of which the public would certainly stop to admire how the sculptor, by expressing the indefeasible dignity of the Verdurins as opposed to that of the La Trémoïlles and the Laumes, whose equals they naturally were, as they were the equals of all the bores on earth, had managed to give an almost papal majesty to the whiteness and rigidity of the stone. But at last the marble came to life and insinuated that one could not be squeamish if one wanted to go to
the homes of these people, because the wife was always drunk and the husband so ignorant that he said ‘collidor' instead of ‘corridor'.

– You'd have to pay me handsomely before I'd let that sort enter my house, concluded Mme Verdurin, looking at Swann with an imperious air.

She probably did not hope that he would be submissive enough to imitate the saintly simplicity of the pianist's aunt, who had just exclaimed: ‘You see that? What astonishes me is that there's still people who'll speak to them! I think I would be too afraid: once struck, out of luck! How can there still be folks low enough to go running after them?' but that he would at least answer like Forcheville: ‘Lord, she's a duchess; some people are still impressed by that,' which had at least allowed Mme Verdurin to reply: ‘Much good may it do them!' Instead of that, Swann merely laughed with an air that signified that he could not even take such extravagant nonsense seriously. M. Verdurin, continuing to cast furtive glances at his wife, saw with sadness and understood all too well that she was feeling the rage of a grand inquisitor who cannot manage to extirpate the heresy, and in order to try to lead Swann to a recantation, since the courage of one's convictions always seems to be a calculation and an act of cowardice in the eyes of those who do not share them, M. Verdurin challenged him:

– Now tell us frankly what you think of them, we won't repeat it to them.

To which Swann answered:

– Why, it's not in the least out of fear of the duchess (if you're talking about the La Trémoïlles). I assure you everyone likes to visit her. I'm not saying she's ‘profound' – (he pronounced ‘profound' as if it were a ridiculous word, because his language still bore the trace of habits of mind which his recent rejuvenation, marked by a love of music, had temporarily made him lose – so that at times he now expressed his opinions warmly –) but I'm quite sincere when I say that she's intelligent and her husband is truly well-read. They're charming people.

Whereupon Mme Verdurin, feeling that because of this one infidel she would be prevented from creating a complete moral unanimity among the little clan, was unable to stop herself, in her rage against
this stubborn man who did not see how much his words were making her suffer, from crying out to him from the depths of her heart:

– Believe it if you like, but at least don't say it to us.

– It all depends on what you call intelligence, said Forcheville, who felt it was his turn to shine. Now, Swann, what do you mean by intelligence?

– There you are! exclaimed Odette. That's the sort of big subject I'm always asking him to talk to me about, but he never will.

– But I do… protested Swann.

– What tripe! said Odette.

– Tripe with onions? asked the doctor.

– As you see it, Forcheville went on, does intelligence mean a gift of the gab, does it have to do with how people manage to worm their way in?

– Finish up so they can take your plate, said Mme Verdurin sourly, turning to Saniette, who, absorbed in thought, had stopped eating. And perhaps a little ashamed of the tone she had taken: Never mind, take your time, I only said it for the sake of the others, because it holds up the next course.

– There is, said Brichot, rapping out the syllables, a very curious definition of intelligence in that gentle anarchist, Fénelon
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…

– Listen! said Mme Verdurin to Forcheville and the doctor. ‘He's going to give us Fénelon's definition of intelligence. Now that's interesting. It's not often you have a chance of hearing that.'

But Brichot was waiting for Swann to give his own definition. Swann did not answer, and by avoiding them like this spoiled the brilliant contest that Mme Verdurin was so delighted to be able to offer Forcheville.

– Naturally. He's just like that with me all the time, said Odette sulkily. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one he doesn't think is up to his level.

– Those de la Trémouailles,
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who are so little to be recommended, as Mme Verdurin has shown us, asked Brichot with powerfully clear articulation, are they descended from the folk whom Mme de Sévigné, that good snob, admitted she was pleased to know because it was good for her peasants? Of course, the marquise had another reason, and one
that had to be more important to her, for as a woman of letters through and through, she put copy before all else. Now in the journal she used to send regularly to her daughter, it was Mme de la Trémouaille, kept well informed by her great connections, who supplied the foreign politics.

– Why, no, I don't think it's the same family, ventured Mme Verdurin.

Saniette, who, after hurriedly giving the butler his plate, which was still full, had plunged back into a meditative silence, emerged from it at last to tell them with a smile the story of a dinner he had attended with the Duc de La Trémoïlle at which it turned out that the Duc did not know George Sand was the pseudonym of a woman. Swann, who was fond of Saniette, thought he ought to supply him with a few particulars about the Duc's culture proving that such ignorance on the Duc's part was materially impossible; but suddenly he stopped, realizing that Saniette did not need those proofs and knew the story was untrue for the simple reason that he had just invented it a moment ago. That excellent man suffered from being thought such a bore by the Verdurins; and, aware that he had been even duller than usual at this dinner, he had not wanted to let it end before he succeeded in amusing them. He capitulated so quickly, looked so unhappy at seeing that the effect on which he had counted had failed, and answered Swann in such a pitiful tone so that Swann would not persist in a refutation that was henceforth pointless – ‘All right, all right; and if I'm mistaken it's not a crime, I hope,' that Swann would have liked to be able to say the story was true and delightful. The doctor, who had been listening to them, thought this was the moment to say:
Se non èvero
,
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but he was not sure quite sure of the words and was afraid of getting muddled.

After dinner, Forcheville went up to the doctor.

– She must not have been too bad at one time, Mme Verdurin, and she's a woman you can talk to; for me that's everything. Of course she's beginning to get a bit long in the tooth. But Mme de Crécy – now there's a little woman who seems intelligent – oh yes, by God, you can see at a glance that she keeps her eyes peeled! We're talking about Mme de Crécy, he said to M. Verdurin, who was approaching,
his pipe in his mouth. I would imagine that as a specimen of the female figure…

– I'd rather have it in my bed than a slap with a wet fish, Cottard rushed to say, having waited in vain for some moments for Forcheville to pause for breath so that he could insert that old joke, which he feared would not be appropriate again if the conversation changed course, and which he delivered with that excess of spontaneity and assurance which attempts to mask the coldness and anxiety inseparable from a recitation. Forcheville was familiar with the joke, he understood it and was amused by it. As for M. Verdurin, he was unsparing with his mirth, because he had recently discovered a signal for expressing it different from the one used by his wife, but just as simple and clear. Scarcely had he begun the movement of head and shoulders of a person shaking with laughter than he would immediately begin coughing as if, in laughing too hard, he had swallowed smoke from his pipe. And still keeping the pipe in one corner of his mouth, he would indefinitely prolong the pantomime of suffocation and hilarity. Thus he and Mme Verdurin, who, across from him, listening to the painter tell her a story, was closing her eyes before dropping her face into her hands, looked like two theatre masks each in its own way representing merriment.

M. Verdurin had in fact been wise not to withdraw his pipe from his mouth, for Cottard, who needed to leave the room for a moment, made a joke under his breath that he had learned recently and that he repeated each time he had to go to the same place: ‘I must absent myself for a moment in aid of the Duc d'Aumale,'
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so that M. Verdurin's fit began again.

– Take your pipe out of your mouth. Can't you see you're going to choke to death trying not to laugh? Mme Verdurin said to him as she came around offering the liqueurs.

– How charming your husband is, he has wit enough for four, declared Forcheville to Mme Cottard. Thank you, Madame. An old soldier like me never refuses a drop.

– M. de Forcheville thinks Odette is charming, said M. Verdurin to his wife.

– Why, actually she would like to come to lunch with you some
time. We're going to contrive to make it happen, but Swann mustn't hear of it. You know, he puts rather a damper on things. That won't mean you shouldn't come to dinner, of course, we hope to have you very often. With summer coming, we'll be dining outdoors quite frequently. That won't bore you, will it – little dinners in the Bois? Good, good, it'll be very nice. You! Aren't you going to go do your job, now?' she cried out to the little pianist, in order to display, in front of a newcomer as important as Forcheville, both her wit and her tyrannical power over the faithful.

– M. de Forcheville was saying bad things to me about you, said Mme Cottard to her husband when he returned to the drawing-room.

And he, pursuing the idea of Forcheville's noble lineage, which had preoccupied him from the beginning of dinner, said to him:

– I'm treating a baroness just now, Baronne Putbus;
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the Putbuses took part in the Crusades, didn't they? They have a lake in Pomerania that's so big it must be ten times the size of the place de la Concorde. I'm treating her for rheumatoid arthritis; she's a charming woman. In fact she knows Mme Verdurin, I believe.

Which allowed Forcheville, finding himself, a moment later, alone with Mme Cottard, to complete the favourable judgment that he had passed on her husband:

– And he's so interesting, you can tell he knows a few people. Lord, these doctors know such a lot!

– I'm going to play the phrase from the sonata for M. Swann, said the pianist.

– My God! I trust it's not the ‘sonata-snake'?
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asked M. de Forcheville to create an effect.

But Doctor Cottard, who had never heard that pun, did not understand it and thought M. de Forcheville was making a mistake. He went up to them briskly to correct it:

– No, no, it's not
serpent à sonates
, it's
serpent à sonnettes
, he said in a tone that was zealous, impatient and triumphant.

Forcheville explained the pun to him. The doctor blushed.

– Admit that it's funny, Doctor!

– Oh, I've known it for too long, answered Cottard.

But they fell silent; under the agitation of the violin tremolos
protecting it with their quivering extended two octaves above – and as in a mountainous countryside, behind the apparent and vertiginous immobility of a waterfall one sees, two hundred feet down, the minuscule form of a woman walking – the little phrase had just appeared, distant, graceful, protected by the long unfurling of its transparent, ceaseless curtain of sound. And Swann, in his heart, appealed to it as to a confidant of his love, as to a friend of Odette's who certainly should tell her to pay no attention to that Forcheville.

– Ah, you're late! said Mme Verdurin to a regular whom she had invited only ‘for coffee', ‘Brichot was incomparable – so eloquent! But he's gone. Isn't that right, Monsieur Swann? I believe it was the first time you and he had met, she said in order to point out to him that she was the one to whom he owed the introduction. Wasn't our Brichot delicious?