The Modern Library In Search of Lost Time, Complete and Unabridged : 6-Book Bundle (358 page)

Morel was all the more inclined to believe this lie since M. de Charlus liked to confide in him his relations with ruffians, a race for which the son of a valet, however villainous himself, professes a feeling of horror as strong as his attachment to Bonapartist principles.

Already, in his cunning mind, a scheme had begun to take shape analogous to what was called in the eighteenth century a reversal of alliances. Resolving never to speak to M. de Charlus again, he would return on the following evening to Jupien’s niece, and see that everything was put right with her. Unfortunately for him this plan was doomed to failure, M. de Charlus having made an appointment for that same evening with Jupien, which the ex-tailor dared not fail to keep in spite of recent events. Other events, as we shall see, having occurred as regards Morel, when Jupien in tears told his tale of woe to the Baron, the latter, no less woeful, assured him that he would adopt the forsaken girl, that she could take one of the titles that were at his disposal, probably that of Mlle d’Oloron, that he would see that she received a thorough finishing and married a rich husband. Promises which filled Jupien with joy but left his niece unmoved, for she still loved Morel, who, from stupidity or cynicism, would come into the shop and tease her in Jupien’s absence. “What’s the matter with you,” he would say with a laugh, “with those big circles under your eyes? A broken heart? Dammit, time passes and things change. After all, a man has a right to try on a shoe, and all the more so a woman, and if she doesn’t fit him …” He lost his temper once
only, because she cried, which he considered cowardly, unworthy of her. People are not always very tolerant of the tears which they themselves have provoked.

But we have looked too far ahead, for all this did not happen until after the Verdurin reception which we interrupted, and which we must take up again at the point where we left off.

“I’d never have suspected,” Morel groaned, in answer to Mme Verdurin.

“Naturally people don’t say it to your face, but that doesn’t prevent your being the talk of the Conservatoire,” Mme Verdurin went on spitefully, seeking to make it plain to Morel that it was not only M. de Charlus who was being criticised, but himself too. “I’m quite prepared to believe that you know nothing about it; all the same, people are talking freely. Ask Ski what they were saying the other day at Chevillard’s concert within a few feet of us when you came into my box. In other words, people are pointing a finger at you. Personally I don’t pay the slightest attention, but what I do feel is that it makes a man supremely ridiculous and that he becomes a public laughing-stock for the rest of his life.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” said Charlie in the tone in which one speaks to a dentist who has just caused one the most excruciating pain without one’s daring to show it, or to a too bloodthirsty second who has forced one into a duel on account of some casual remark of which he has said: “You can’t swallow that.”

“I believe that you have plenty of character, that you’re a man,” replied Mme Verdurin, “and that you will be capable of speaking out boldly, although he tells everybody
that you’d never dare, that he’s got you under his thumb.”

Charlie, seeking a borrowed dignity in which to cloak the tatters of his own, found in his memory something that he had read or, more probably, heard quoted, and at once proclaimed: “I wasn’t brought up to stomach such an affront. This very evening I shall break with M. de Charlus. The Queen of Naples has gone, hasn’t she? Otherwise, before breaking with him, I’d have asked him …”

“It isn’t necessary to break with him altogether,” said Mme Verdurin, anxious to avoid a disruption of the little nucleus. “There’s no harm in your seeing him here, among our little group, where you are appreciated, where no one speaks ill of you. But you must insist upon your freedom, and not let him drag you about among all those silly women who are friendly to your face; I wish you could have heard what they were saying behind your back. Anyhow, you need feel no regret. Not only are you getting rid of a stain which would have marked you for the rest of your life, but from the artistic point of view, even without this scandalous presentation by Charlus, I don’t mind telling you that debasing yourself like this in these sham society circles would give the impression that you aren’t serious, would earn you the reputation of being an amateur, a mere salon performer, which is a terrible thing at your age. I can understand that to all those fine ladies it’s highly convenient to be able to return their friends’ hospitality by making you come and play for nothing, but it’s your future as an artist that would foot the bill. I don’t say that there aren’t one or two. You
mentioned the Queen of Naples—who has left, for she had to go on to another party—now she’s a nice woman, and I may tell you that I think she has a poor opinion of Charlus. I’m sure she came here chiefly to please me. Yes, yes, I know she was longing to meet M. Verdurin and myself. That is a house in which you might play. And then of course if I take you—because the artists all know me, you understand, they’ve always been very sweet to me, and regard me almost as one of themselves, as their Mistress—that’s quite a different matter. But whatever you do, you must never go near Mme de Duras! Don’t go and make a bloomer like that! I know several artists who have come here and told me all about her. They know they can trust me,” she said, in the sweet and simple tone which she knew how to adopt instantaneously, imparting an appropriate air of modesty to her features, an appropriate charm to her eyes, “they come here, just like that, to tell me all their little troubles; the ones who are said to be most taciturn go on chatting to me sometimes for hours on end, and I can’t tell you how interesting they are. Poor Chabrier always used to say: ‘There’s nobody like Mme Verdurin for getting them to talk.’ Well, do you know, I’ve seen them all, every one of them without exception, literally in tears after having gone to play for Mme de Duras. It’s not only the way she enjoys making her servants humiliate them, but they could never get an engagement anywhere else again. The agents would say: ‘Oh yes, the fellow who plays at Mme de Duras’s.’ That settled it. There’s nothing like that for ruining a man’s future. You see, with society people it doesn’t seem serious; you may have all the talent in the world, it’s a sad thing to have to say, but one Mme de Duras is enough to give
you the reputation of an amateur. And artists, you realise—and after all I know them, I’ve been moving among them for forty years, launching them, taking an interest in them—well, when they say that somebody’s an amateur, that’s the end of it. And people were beginning to say it of you. Indeed, the number of times I’ve been obliged to take up the cudgels on your behalf, to assure them that you wouldn’t play in some absurd drawing-room! Do you know what the answer was: ‘But he’ll be forced to. Charlus won’t even consult him, he never asks him for his opinion.’ Somebody wanted to pay him a compliment by saying: ‘We greatly admire your friend Morel.’ Do you know the answer he gave, with that insolent air which you know so well? ‘But what do you mean by calling him my friend. We’re not of the same class. Say rather that he is my creature, my protégé.’ ”

At this moment there stirred beneath the domed forehead of the musical goddess the one thing that certain people cannot keep to themselves, a word which it is not merely abject but imprudent to repeat. But the need to repeat it is stronger than honour or prudence. It was to this need that, after a few convulsive twitches of her spherical and sorrowful brow, the Mistress succumbed: “Someone actually told my husband that he had said ‘my servant,’ but for that I cannot vouch,” she added. It was a similar need that had impelled M. de Charlus, shortly after he had sworn to Morel that nobody should ever know the story of his birth, to say to Mme Verdurin: “His father was a valet.” A similar need again, now that the word had been said, would make it circulate from one person to another, each of whom would confide it under the seal of a secrecy which would be promised and not kept by the
hearer, as by the informant himself. These words would end, as in the game called hunt-the-thimble, by being traced back to Mme Verdurin, bringing down upon her the wrath of the person concerned, who would finally have heard them. She knew this, but could not repress the word that was burning her tongue. “Servant” could not but offend Morel. She said “servant” nevertheless, and if she added that she could not vouch for the word, this was so as to appear certain of the rest, thanks to this hint of uncertainty, and to show her impartiality. She herself found this impartiality so touching that she began to speak tenderly to Charlie: “Because, don’t you see, I don’t blame him. He’s dragging you down into his abyss, it is true, but it’s not his fault since he wallows in it himself, since he wallows in it,” she repeated in a louder tone, having been struck by the aptness of the image which had taken shape so quickly that her attention only now caught up with it and sought to make the most of it. “No, what I do reproach him for,” she went on in a melting tone—like a woman drunk with her own success—“is a want of delicacy towards you. There are certain things that one doesn’t say in public. For instance, this evening he was betting that he would make you blush with joy by telling you (stuff and nonsense, of course, for his recommendation would be enough to prevent your getting it) that you were to have the Cross of the Legion of Honour. Even that I could overlook, although I’ve never much liked,” she went on with a delicate and dignified air, “seeing someone make a fool of his friends, but, don’t you know, there are certain little things that do stick in one’s gullet. Such as when he told us, with screams of laughter, that if
you want the Cross it’s to please your uncle and that your uncle was a flunkey.”

“He told you that!” cried Charlie, believing, on the strength of this adroitly interpolated remark, in the truth of everything that Mme Verdurin had said. Mme Verdurin was overwhelmed with the joy of an old mistress who, just as her young lover is on the point of deserting her, succeeds in breaking up his marriage. And perhaps the lie had not been a calculated one, perhaps she had not even consciously lied. A sort of sentimental logic, or perhaps, more elementary still, a sort of nervous reflex, that impelled her, in order to brighten up her life and preserve her happiness, to sow discord in the little clan, may have brought impulsively to her lips, without giving her time to check their veracity, these assertions that were so diabolically effective if not strictly accurate.

“If he had only said it to us it wouldn’t matter,” the Mistress went on, “we know better than to pay any attention to what he says, and besides, what does a man’s origin matter, you have your worth, you’re what you make yourself, but that he should use it to make Mme de Portefin laugh” (Mme Verdurin named this lady on purpose because she knew that Charlie admired her) “that’s what makes us sick. My husband said to me when he heard him: ‘I’d sooner he had struck me in the face.’ For he’s as fond of you as I am, you know, is Gustave” (it was thus that one learned that M. Verdurin’s name was Gustave). “He’s really very sensitive.”

“But I never told you I was fond of him,” muttered M. Verdurin, acting the kind-hearted curmudgeon. “It’s Charlus who’s fond of him.”

“Oh, no! Now I realise the difference. I was betrayed by a wretch and you, you’re good,” Charlie fervently exclaimed.

“No, no,” murmured Mme Verdurin, seeking to safeguard her victory (for she felt that her Wednesdays were safe) but not to abuse it, “wretch is too strong; he does harm, a great deal of harm, unwittingly; you know that tale about the Legion of Honour was only a momentary squib. And it would be painful to me to repeat all that he said about your family,” she added, although she would have been greatly embarrassed had she been asked to do so.

“Oh, even if it
was
only momentary, it proves that he’s a traitor,” cried Morel.

It was at this moment that we returned to the drawing-room. “Ah!” exclaimed M. de Charlus when he saw that Morel was in the room, and, advancing upon the musician with the alacrity of a man who has skilfully organised a whole evening’s entertainment for the purpose of an assignation with a woman, and in his excitement never imagines that he has with his own hands set the snare in which he will be caught and publicly thrashed by bravoes stationed in readiness by her husband, “so here you are at last. Well, are you pleased, young hero, and presently young knight of the Legion of Honour? For very soon you will be able to sport your Cross,” he said to Morel with a tender and triumphant air, but by the very mention of the decoration endorsing Mme Verdurin’s lies, which appeared to Morel to be indisputable truth.

“Leave me alone. I forbid you to come near me,” Morel shouted at the Baron. “You know what I mean all right. I’m not the first person you’ve tried to pervert!”

My sole consolation lay in the thought that I was about to see Morel and the Verdurins pulverised by M. de Charlus. For a thousand times less than that I had been visited with his furious rage; no one was safe from it; a king would not have intimidated him. Instead of which, an extraordinary thing happened. M. de Charlus stood speechless, dumbfounded, measuring the depths of his misery without understanding its cause, unable to think of a word to say, raising his eyes to gaze at each of the company in turn, with a questioning, outraged, suppliant air, which seemed to be asking them not so much what had happened as what answer he ought to make. And yet M. de Charlus possessed all the resources, not merely of eloquence but of audacity, when, seized by a rage which had been simmering for a long time, he reduced someone to despair with the most cruel words in front of a shocked society group which had never imagined that anyone could go so far. M. de Charlus, on these occasions, almost foamed at the mouth, working himself up into a veritable frenzy which left everyone trembling. But in these instances he had the initiative, he was on the attack, he said whatever came into his head (just as Bloch was able to make fun of the Jews yet blushed if the word Jew was uttered in his hearing). These people whom he hated, he hated because he thought they looked down on him. Had they been civil to him, instead of flying into a furious rage with them he would have taken them to his bosom. Perhaps what now struck him speechless was—when he saw that M. and Mme Verdurin turned their eyes away from him and that no one was coming to his rescue—his present anguish and, still more, his dread of greater anguish to come; or else the fact that, not having
worked himself up and concocted an imaginary rage in advance, having no ready-made thunderbolt at hand, he had been seized and struck down suddenly at a moment when he was unarmed (for, sensitive, neurotic, hysterical, he was genuinely impulsive but pseudo-brave—indeed, as I had always thought, and it was something that had rather endeared him to me, pseudo-cruel—and did not have the normal reactions of an outraged man of honour); or else that, in a milieu that was not his own, he felt less at ease and less courageous than he would in the Faubourg. The fact remains that, in this salon which he despised, this great nobleman (in whom superiority over commoners was no more essentially inherent than it had been in this or that ancestor of his trembling before the revolutionary tribunal) could do nothing, in the paralysis of his every limb as well as his tongue, but cast around him terror-stricken, suppliant, bewildered glances, outraged by the violence that was being done to him. In a situation so cruelly unforeseen, this great talker could do no more than stammer: “What does it all mean? What’s wrong?” His question was not even heard. And the eternal pantomime of panic terror has so little changed that this elderly gentleman to whom a disagreeable incident had occurred in a Parisian drawing-room unconsciously re-enacted the basic formal attitudes in which the Greek sculptors of the earliest times symbolised the terror of nymphs pursued by the god Pan.