The Modern Library In Search of Lost Time, Complete and Unabridged : 6-Book Bundle (216 page)

As a rule these handsome supernumeraries had been his mistresses but were no longer (as was Mme d’Arpajon’s case) or were on the point of ceasing to be. It may well have been that the glamour which the Duchess enjoyed in their eyes and the hope of being invited to her house, though they themselves came from thoroughly aristocratic backgrounds, if of the second rank, had prompted them, even more than the good looks and generosity of the Duke, to yield to his desires. Not that the Duchess would have placed any insuperable obstacle in the way of their crossing her threshold: she was aware that in more than one of them she had found an ally thanks to whom she had obtained countless things which she wanted but which M. de Guermantes pitilessly denied his wife so long as he was not in love with someone else. And so the reason why they were not received by the Duchess until their liaison was already far advanced lay principally in the fact that the Duke, each time he embarked on a love affair, had imagined no more than a brief fling, as a reward for which he considered an invitation from his wife excessive. And yet he found himself offering this as the price for far less, for a first kiss in fact, because he had met with unexpected resistance or, on the contrary, because there had been no resistance. In love it often happens that gratitude, the desire to give pleasure, make us generous beyond the limits of what hope and self-interest had foreseen. But then the realisation of this offer was hindered by conflicting circumstances. In the first place, all the women who had responded to M. de Guermantes’s love, and sometimes even when they had not yet given themselves to him, he had one after another kept cut off from the world. He no longer allowed them to see anyone, spent almost all his time in their company, looked after the education of their children, to whom now and again, if one was to judge by certain striking resemblances later on, he had occasion to present a little brother or sister. And then if, at the start of the liaison, the prospect of an introduction to Mme de Guermantes, which had never been envisaged by the Duke, had played a part in the mistress’s mind, the liaison in itself had altered the lady’s point of view; the Duke was no longer for her merely the husband of the smartest woman in Paris, but a man with whom the new mistress was in love, a man moreover who had given her the means and the inclination for a more luxurious style of living and had transposed the relative importance in her mind of questions of social and of material advantage; while now and then a composite jealousy of Mme de Guermantes, into which all these factors entered, animated the Duke’s mistresses. But this case was the rarest of all; besides, when the day appointed for the introduction at length arrived (at a point when as a rule it had more or less become a matter of indifference to the Duke, whose actions, like everyone else’s, were more often dictated by previous actions than by the original motive which had ceased to exist), it frequently happened that it was Mme de Guermantes who had sought the acquaintance of the mistress in whom she hoped, and so greatly needed, to find a valuable ally against her dread husband. This is not to say that, except at rare moments, in their own house, when, if the Duchess talked too much, he let fall a few words or, more dreadful still, preserved a silence which petrified her, M. de Guermantes failed in his outward relations with his wife to observe what are called the forms. People who did not know them might easily be taken in. Sometimes in autumn, between racing at Deauville, taking the waters, and returning to Guermantes for the shooting, in the few weeks which people spend in Paris, since the Duchess had a liking for café-concerts, the Duke would go with her to spend the evening at one of these. The audience remarked at once, in one of those little open boxes in which there is just room for two, this Hercules in his “smoking” (for in France we give to everything that is more or less British the one name that it happens not to bear in England), his monocle screwed in his eye, a fat cigar, from which now and then he drew a puff of smoke, in his plump but finely shaped hand, on the ring-finger of which a sapphire glowed, keeping his eyes for the most part on the stage but, when he did let them fall upon the audience in which there was absolutely no one whom he knew, softening them with an air of gentleness, reserve, courtesy and consideration. When a song struck him as amusing and not too indecent, the Duke would turn round with a smile to his wife, would share with her, with a twinkle of good-natured complicity, the innocent merriment which the new song had aroused in him. And the spectators might believe that there was no better husband in the world than he, nor anyone more enviable than the Duchess—that woman outside whom every interest in the Duke’s life lay, that woman whom he did not love, to whom he had never ceased to be unfaithful; and when the Duchess felt tired, they saw M. de Guermantes rise, put on her cloak with his own hands, arranging her necklaces so that they did not get caught in the lining, and clear a path for her to the exit with an assiduous and respectful attention which she received with the coldness of the woman of the world who sees in such behaviour simply conventional good manners, at times even with the slightly ironical bitterness of the disabused spouse who has no illusion left to shatter. But despite these externals (another element of that politeness which has transferred duty from the inner depths to the surface, at a period already remote but which still continues for its survivors) the life of the Duchess was by no means easy. M. de Guermantes only became generous and human again for a new mistress, who would, as it generally happened, take the Duchess’s side; the latter saw the possibility arising for her once again of generosities towards inferiors, charities to the poor, and even for herself, later on, a new and sumptuous motor-car. But from the irritation which was provoked as a rule pretty rapidly in Mme de Guermantes by people whom she found too submissive, the Duke’s mistresses were not exempt. Presently the Duchess grew tired of them. As it happened, at that moment too the Duke’s liaison with Mme d’Arpajon was drawing to an end. Another mistress was in the offing.

No doubt the love which M. de Guermantes had borne each of them in succession would begin one day to make itself felt anew: in the first place this love, in dying, bequeathed them to the household like beautiful marble statues—beautiful to the Duke, become thus in part an artist, because he had loved them and was appreciative now of lines which he would not have appreciated without love—which brought into juxtaposition in the Duchess’s drawing-room their forms that had long been inimical, devoured by jealousies and quarrels, and finally reconciled in the peace of friendship; and then this friendship itself was an effect of the love which had made M. de Guermantes observe in those who had been his mistresses virtues which exist in every human being but are perceptible only to the carnal eye, so much so that the ex-mistress who has become “a good friend” who would do anything in the world for one has become a cliché, like the doctor or father who is not a doctor or a father but a friend. But during a period of transition, the woman whom M. de Guermantes was preparing to abandon bewailed her lot, made scenes, showed herself exacting, appeared indiscreet, became a nuisance. The Duke would begin to take a dislike to her. Then Mme de Guermantes had a chance to bring to light the real or imagined defects of a person who annoyed her. Known to be kind, she would receive the constant telephone calls, the confidences, the tears of the abandoned mistress and make no complaint. She would laugh at them, first with her husband, then with a few chosen friends. And imagining that the pity which she showed for the unfortunate woman gave her the right to make fun of her, even to her face, whatever the lady might say, provided it could be included among the attributes of the ridiculous character which the Duke and Duchess had recently fabricated for her, Mme de Guermantes had no hesitation in exchanging glances of ironical connivance with her husband.

Meanwhile, as she sat down to table, the Princesse de Parme remembered that she had thought of inviting Mme d’Heudicourt to the Opéra, and, wishing to be assured that this would not in any way offend Mme de Guermantes, was preparing to sound her.

At this moment M. de Grouchy entered, his train having been held up for an hour owing to a derailment. He made what excuses he could. His wife, had she been a Courvoisier, would have died of shame. But Mme de Grouchy was not a Guermantes for nothing. As her husband was apologising for being late, “I see,” she broke in, “that even in little things arriving late is a tradition in your family.”

“Sit down, Grouchy, and don’t let them fluster you,” said the Duke. “Although I move with the times, I must admit that the Battle of Waterloo had its points, since it brought about the Restoration of the Bourbons, and, better still, in a way that made them unpopular. But you seem to be a regular Nimrod!”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I did get quite a good bag. I shall take the liberty of sending the Duchess six brace of pheasant tomorrow.”

An idea seemed to flicker in the eyes of Mme de Guermantes. She insisted that M. de Grouchy must not give himself the trouble of sending the pheasants. And making a sign to the betrothed footman with whom I had exchanged a few words on my way from the Elstir room, “Poullein,” she told him, “you will go tomorrow and fetch M. le Comte’s pheasants and bring them straight back—you won’t mind, will you, Grouchy, if I make a few little presents. Basin and I can’t eat a dozen pheasants by ourselves.”

“But the day after tomorrow will be soon enough,” said M. de Grouchy.

“No, tomorrow suits me better,” the Duchess insisted.

Poullein had turned pale; he would miss his rendezvous with his sweetheart. This was quite enough for the diversion of the Duchess, who liked to appear to be taking a human interest in everyone.

“I know it’s your day off,” she went on to Poullein, “all you’ve got to do is change with Georges; he can take tomorrow off and stay in the day after.”

But the day after, Poullein’s sweetheart would not be free. He had no interest in going out then. As soon as he had left the room, everyone complimented the Duchess on her kindness towards her servants.

“But I only behave towards them as I’d like people to behave to me.”

“That’s just it. They can say they’ve found a good place with you all right.”

“Oh, nothing so very wonderful. But I think they all like me. That one is a little irritating because he’s in love. He thinks it incumbent on him to go about with a long face.”

At this point Poullein reappeared.

“You’re quite right,” said M. de Grouchy, “he doesn’t look very cheerful. With those fellows one has to be kind but not too kind.”

“I admit I’m not a very dreadful mistress. He’ll have nothing to do all day but call for your pheasants, sit in the house doing nothing and eat his share of them.”

“There are plenty of people who would be glad to be in his place,” said M. de Grouchy, for envy makes men blind.

“Oriane,” began the Princesse de Parme, “I had a visit the other day from your cousin d’Heudicourt; of course she’s a highly intelligent woman; she’s a Guermantes—need I say more?—but they tell me she has a spiteful tongue.”

The Duke fastened on his wife a slow gaze of feigned stupefaction. Mme de Guermantes began to laugh. Gradually the Princess became aware of their pantomime.

“But … do you mean to say … you don’t agree with me?” she stammered with growing uneasiness.

“Really, Ma’am, it’s too good of you to pay any attention to Basin’s faces. Now, Basin, you’re not to hint nasty things about our cousins.”

“Does he think she’s too malicious?” inquired the Princess briskly.

“Oh, dear me, no!” replied the Duchess. “I don’t know who told Your Highness that she was malicious. On the contrary, she’s an excellent creature who never spoke ill of anyone, or did any harm to anyone.”

“Ah!” sighed Mme de Parme, greatly relieved. “I must say I’d never noticed it either. But I know it’s often difficult not to be a bit malicious when one has a great deal of wit …”

“Ah! now that is a quality of which she has even less.”

“Less wit?” asked the stupefied Princess.

“Come now, Oriane,” broke in the Duke in a plaintive tone, casting to right and left of him a glance of amusement, “you heard the Princess tell you that she was a superior woman.”

“But isn’t she?”

“Superior in chest measurement, at any rate.”

“Don’t listen to him, Ma’am, he’s having you on; she’s as stupid as a (h’m) goose,” came in a loud and husky voice from Mme de Guermantes, who, a great deal more “old world” even than the Duke when she wasn’t trying, often deliberately sought to be, but in a manner entirely different from the deliquescent, lace jabot style of her husband and in reality far more subtle, with a sort of almost peasant pronunciation which had a harsh and delicious flavour of the soil. “But she’s the best woman in the world. Besides, I don’t really know that one can call it stupidity when it’s carried to such a point as that. I don’t believe I ever met anyone quite like her; she’s a case for a specialist, there’s something pathological about her, she’s a sort of ‘natural’ or cretin or ‘mooncalf,’ like the people you see in melodramas, or in
L’Arlésienne
. I always ask myself, when she comes here, whether the moment may not have arrived at which her intelligence is going to dawn, which makes me a little nervous always.”

The Princess marvelled at these expressions, but remained astonished by the verdict. “She repeated to me—and so did Mme d’Epinay—your remark about ‘Teaser Augustus.’ It’s delicious,” she put in.

M. de Guermantes explained the joke to me. I wanted to tell him that his brother, who pretended not to know me, was expecting me that very evening at eleven o’clock. But I had not asked Robert whether I might mention this assignation, and as the fact that M. de Charlus had practically fixed it with me himself directly contradicted what he had told the Duchess, I judged it more tactful to say nothing.

“‘Teaser Augustus’ isn’t bad,” said M. de Guermantes, “but Mme d’Heudicourt probably didn’t tell you a far wittier remark Oriane made to her the other day in reply to an invitation to luncheon.”