The Modern Library In Search of Lost Time, Complete and Unabridged : 6-Book Bundle (277 page)

The faithful entered the drawing-room. M. Verdurin, who had remained behind with me while I took off my things, took my arm by way of a joke, as one’s host does at a dinner-party when there is no lady for one to take in. “Did you have a pleasant journey?” “Yes, M. Brichot told me things which interested me greatly,” said I, thinking of the etymologies, and because I had heard that the Verdurins greatly admired Brichot. “I’m surprised to hear that he told you anything,” said M. Verdurin, “he’s such a retiring man, and talks so little about the things he knows.” This compliment did not strike me as being very apt. “He seems charming,” I remarked. “Exquisite, delightful, not an ounce of pedantry, such a light, fantastic touch, my wife adores him, and so do I!” replied M. Verdurin in an exaggerated tone, as though reciting a lesson. Only then did I grasp that what he had said to me about Brichot was ironical. And I wondered whether M. Verdurin, since those far-off days of which I had heard reports, had not shaken off his wife’s tutelage.

The sculptor was greatly astonished to learn that the Verdurins were willing to have M. de Charlus in their house. Whereas in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where M. de Charlus was so well known, nobody ever referred to his morals (of which the majority had no suspicion and others remained doubtful, crediting him rather with intense but platonic friendships, with indiscretions, while the enlightened few carefully concealed them, shrugging their shoulders at any insinuation upon which some malicious Gallardon might venture), these morals, the nature of which was known to only a handful of intimates, were on the contrary denounced daily far from the circle in which he moved, just as, at times, the sound of artillery fire is audible only beyond an intervening zone of silence. Moreover, in those professional and artistic circles where he was regarded as the personification of inversion, his high social position and his noble origin were completely unknown, by a process analogous to that which, among the people of Romania, has brought it about that the name of Ronsard is known as that of a great nobleman, while his poetical work is unknown there. Furthermore, the Romanian estimate of Ronsard’s nobility is founded upon an error. Similarly, if in the world of painters and actors M. de Charlus had such a bad reputation, this was due to their confusing him with a Comte Leblois de Charlus who was not even related to him (or, if so, the connexion was extremely remote), and who had been arrested, possibly by mistake, in the course of a notorious police raid. In short, all the stories related of our M. de Charlus referred to the other. Many professionals swore that they had had relations with M. de Charlus, and did so in good faith, believing that the false M. de Charlus was the true one, the false one possibly encouraging, partly from an affectation of nobility, partly to conceal his vice, a confusion which was for a long time prejudicial to the real one (the Baron we know), and afterwards, when he had begun to go down the hill, became a convenience, for it enabled him likewise to say: “It isn’t me.” And in the present instance it was not him to whom the rumours referred. Finally, what added even more to the falseness of the comments on a true fact (the Baron’s taste) was the fact that he had had an intimate but perfectly pure friendship with an author who, in the theatrical world, had for some reason acquired a similar reputation which he in no way deserved. When they were seen together at a first night, people would say: “You see,” just as it was supposed that the Duchesse de Guermantes had immoral relations with the Princesse de Parme—an indestructible legend, for it would have been dispelled only by a proximity to those two noble ladies to which the people who spread it would presumably never attain other than by staring at them through their glasses in the theatre and slandering them to the occupant of the next stall. From M. de Charlus’s morals, the sculptor concluded all the more readily that the Baron’s social position must be equally low, since he had no information whatsoever about the family to which M. de Charlus belonged, his title or his name. Just as Cottard imagined that everybody knew that the title of doctor of medicine meant nothing and the title of hospital consultant meant something, so people in society are mistaken when they suppose that everybody has the same idea of the social importance of their name as they themselves and the other people of their circle.

The Prince d’Agrigente was regarded as a flashy foreigner by a club servant to whom he owed twenty-five louis, and regained his importance only in the Faubourg Saint-Germain where he had three sisters who were duchesses, for it is not among humble people, in whose eyes he is of small account, but among smart people, who know who is who, that a nobleman can hope to make an impression. M. de Charlus, indeed, was to learn in the course of the evening that his host had only the most superficial notions about the most illustrious ducal families.

Convinced that the Verdurins were making a grave mistake in allowing an individual of tarnished reputation to be admitted to so “select” a household as theirs, the sculptor felt it his duty to take the Mistress aside. “You are entirely mistaken; besides, I never pay any attention to such tales, and even if it were true, I may be allowed to point out that it could hardly compromise
me
!” replied Mme Verdurin angrily, for, Morel being the principal feature of the Wednesdays, she was particularly anxious not to give him any offence. As for Cottard, he could not express an opinion, for he had asked leave to go upstairs for a moment to “do a little job” in the
buen retiro
and afterwards, in M. Verdurin’s bedroom, to write an extremely urgent letter for a patient.

An eminent publisher from Paris who had come to call, expecting to be invited to stay to dinner, withdrew with savage abruptness, realising that he was not smart enough for the little clan. He was a tall, stout man, very dark, with a studious and somewhat trenchant look about him. He reminded one of an ebony paper-knife.

Mme Verdurin, who, to welcome us in her immense drawing-room, in which displays of grasses, poppies, field-flowers, picked only that morning, alternated with a similar theme painted in monochrome two centuries earlier by an artist of exquisite taste, had risen for a moment from a game of cards which she was playing with an old friend, begged us to excuse her for a minute or two until she finished her game while continuing to talk to us. What I told her about my impressions was not entirely pleasing to her. For one thing I was shocked to observe that she and her husband came indoors every day long before the hour of those sunsets which were considered so fine when seen from that cliff, and finer still from the terrace of La Raspelière, and which I would have travelled miles to see. “Yes, it’s incomparable,” said Mme Verdurin carelessly, with a glance at the huge windows which gave the room a wall of glass. “Even though we have it in front of us all the time, we never grow tired of it,” and she turned her attention back to her cards. But my very enthusiasm made me exacting. I complained of not being able to see from the drawing-room the rocks of Darnetal which Elstir had told me were quite lovely at that hour, when they reflected so many colours. “Ah! you can’t see them from here, you’d have to go to the end of the gardens, to the ‘view of the bay.’ From the seat there, you can take in the whole panorama. But you can’t go there by yourself, you’ll lose your way. I can take you there, if you like,” she added half-heartedly. “Come now, no,” said her husband, “haven’t you had enough of those rheumatic pains you had the other day? Do you want a new lot? He can come back and see the view of the bay another time.” I did not insist, and realised that it was enough for the Verdurins to know that this sunset made its way into their drawing-room or dining-room, like a magnificent painting, like a priceless Japanese enamel, justifying the high rent they were paying for La Raspelière, furnished, without their having constantly to raise their eyes towards it; the important thing here for them was to live comfortably, to go for drives, to eat well, to talk, to entertain agreeable friends whom they provided with amusing games of billiards, good meals, merry tea-parties. I noticed, however, later on, how intelligently they had got to know the district, taking their guests for excursions as “novel” as the music to which they made them listen. The part which the flowers of La Raspelière, the paths along the edge of the sea, the old houses, the undiscovered churches, played in M. Verdurin’s life was so great that those who saw him only in Paris and who themselves substituted urban luxuries for seaside and country life could barely understand the exalted idea that he himself had of his own life, or the importance that his pleasures gave him in his own eyes. This importance was further enhanced by the fact that the Verdurins were convinced that La Raspelière, which they hoped to purchase, was a property without its match in the world. This superiority which their self-esteem made them attribute to La Raspelière justified in their eyes my enthusiasm which, but for that, would have annoyed them slightly, because of the disappointments which it involved (like those which my first experience of Berma had once caused me) and which I frankly admitted to them.

“I hear the carriage coming back,” the Mistress suddenly murmured. Let us here briefly remark that Mme Verdurin, quite apart from the inevitable changes due to increasing years, no longer resembled what she had been at the time when Swann and Odette used to listen to the little phrase in her house. Even when she heard it played, she was no longer obliged to assume the air of exhausted admiration which she used to assume then, for that had become her normal expression. Under the influence of the countless headaches which the music of Bach, Wagner, Vinteuil, Debussy had given her, Mme Verdurin’s forehead had assumed enormous proportions, like limbs that become permanently deformed by rheumatism. Her temples, suggestive of a pair of burning, pain-stricken, milk-white spheres, in which Harmony endlessly revolved, flung back silvery locks on either side, and proclaimed, on the Mistress’s behalf, without any need for her to say a word: “I know what is in store for me tonight.” Her features no longer took the trouble to formulate, one after another, aesthetic impressions of undue violence, for they had themselves become as it were their permanent expression on a superbly ravaged face. This attitude of resignation to the ever-impending sufferings inflicted by the Beautiful, and the courage required to make her dress for dinner when she had barely recovered from the effects of the last sonata, caused Mme Verdurin, even when listening to the most heartrending music, to preserve a disdainfully impassive countenance, and even to hide herself to swallow her two spoonfuls of aspirin.

“Why, yes, here they are!” M. Verdurin exclaimed with relief on seeing the door open to admit Morel followed by M. de Charlus. The latter, to whom dining with the Verdurins meant not so much going into society as going into a place of ill repute, was as apprehensive as a schoolboy entering a brothel for the first time and showing the utmost deference towards its mistress. Hence the Baron’s habitual desire to appear virile and cold was overshadowed (when he appeared in the open doorway) by those traditional ideas of politeness which are awakened as soon as shyness destroys an artificial pose and falls back on the resources of the subconscious. When it is a Charlus, whether he be noble or plebeian, who is stirred by such a sentiment of instinctive and atavistic politeness to strangers, it is always the spirit of a relative of the female sex, attendant like a goddess, or incarnate as a double, that undertakes to introduce him into a strange drawing-room and to mould his attitude until he comes face to face with his hostess. Thus a young painter, brought up by a godly, Protestant, female cousin, will enter a room, his trembling head to one side, his eyes raised to the ceiling, his hands clutching an invisible muff, the remembered shape of which and its real and tutelary presence will help the frightened artist to cross without agoraphobia the yawning abyss between the hall and the inner drawing-room. Thus it was that the pious relative whose memory is guiding him today used to enter a room years ago, and with so plaintive an air that one wondered what calamity she had come to announce until from her first words one realised, as now in the case of the painter, that she had come to pay an after-dinner call. By virtue of the same law, which ordains that life, in the interests of the still unfulfilled act, shall bring into play, utilise, adulterate, in a perpetual prostitution, the most respectable, sometimes the most sacred, occasionally only the most innocent legacies of the past, and albeit in this instance it engendered a different aspect, a nephew of Mme Cottard, who distressed his family by his effeminate ways and the company he kept, would always make a joyous entry as though he had a surprise in store for you or were going to inform you that he had been left a fortune, radiant with a happiness which it would have been futile to ask him to explain, it being due to his unconscious heredity and his misplaced sex. He walked on tiptoe, was no doubt himself astonished that he was not holding a cardcase, offered you his hand with a simper as he had seen his aunt do, and his only anxious look was directed at the mirror in which he seemed to wish to verify, although he was bare-headed, whether, as Mme Cottard had once inquired of Swann, his hat was askew. As for M. de Charlus, whom the society in which he had lived furnished at this critical moment with different examples, with other arabesques of amiability, and especially with the maxim that one must in certain cases, for the benefit of people of humble rank, bring into play and make use of one’s rarest graces, normally held in reserve, it was with a fluttering, mincing gait and the same sweep with which a skirt would have enlarged and impeded his waddling motion that he advanced upon Mme Verdurin with so flattered and honoured an air that one would have said that to be presented to her was for him a supreme favour. His face, bent slightly forward, on which satisfaction vied with decorum, was creased with tiny wrinkles of affability. One might have thought that it was Mme de Marsantes who was entering the room, so salient at that moment was the woman whom a mistake on the part of Nature had enshrined in the body of M. de Charlus. Of course the Baron had made every effort to conceal this mistake and to assume a masculine appearance. But no sooner had he succeeded than, having meanwhile retained the same tastes, he acquired from this habit of feeling like a woman a new feminine appearance, due not to heredity but to his own way of living. And as he had gradually come to regard even social questions from the feminine point of view, and that quite unconsciously, for it is not only by dint of lying to other people but also by lying to oneself that one ceases to be aware that one is lying, although he had called upon his body to manifest (at the moment of his entering the Verdurins’ house) all the courtesy of a great nobleman, that body, which had so well grasped what M. de Charlus had ceased to understand, displayed, to such an extent that the Baron would have deserved the epithet
ladylike
, all the seductions of a great lady. Besides, can one entirely separate M. de Charlus’s appearance from the fact that sons, who do not always take after their fathers, even without being inverts and even though seekers after women, may consummate upon their faces the profanation of their mothers? But let us not consider here a subject that deserves a chapter to itself: the Profanation of the Mother.