In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV

by Marcel Proust

  “You’re talking rubbish,” said Jupien. “I don’t say there isn’t a photographer who has a little black dog, but I do say he’s not the man I introduced you to.”

  “All right, all right, you can say what you like, but I’m sticking to my own opinion.”

  “You can stick to it as long as you like for all I care. I’ll call round tomorrow about the rendezvous.”

  Jupien returned to the cab, but the Baron, restive, had already got out of it.

  “He’s nice, most agreeable and well-mannered. But what’s his hair like? He isn’t bald, I hope? I didn’t dare ask him to take his cap off. I was as nervous as a kitten.”

  “What a big baby you are!”

  “Anyway we can discuss it, but the next time I should prefer to see him performing his professional functions. For instance I could take the corner seat beside him in his tram. And if it was possible by doubling the price, I should even like to see him do some rather cruel things—for example, pretend not to see the old ladies signalling to the tram and then having to go home on foot.”

  “You vicious thing! But that, dearie, would not be very easy, because there’s also the driver, you see. He wants to be well thought of at work.”

  As I emerged from the cul-de-sac, I remembered the evening at the Princesse de Guermantes’s (the evening which I interrupted in the middle of describing it with this anticipatory digression, but to which I shall return) when M. de Charlus denied being in love with the Comtesse Molé, and I thought to myself that if we could read the thoughts of the people we know we would often be astonished to find that the biggest space in them was occupied by something quite other than what we suspected. I walked round to M. de Charlus’s house. He had not yet returned. I left the letter. It was learned next day that the Princesse de Guermantes had poisoned herself by mistaking one medicine for another, an accident after which she was for several months at death’s door and withdrew from society for several years. It sometimes happened to me also after that evening, on taking a bus, to pay my fare to the conductor whom Jupien had “introduced” to M. de Charlus in the cab. He was a big man, with an ugly, pimpled face and a short-sightedness that made him now wear what Françoise called “specicles.” I could never look at him without thinking of the perturbation followed by amazement which the Princesse de Guermantes would have shown if I had had her with me and had said to her: “Wait a minute, I’m going to show you the person for whose sake M. de Charlus resisted your three appeals on the evening you poisoned yourself, the person responsible for all your misfortunes. You’ll see him in a moment, he isn’t far from here.” Doubtless the Princess’s heart would have beaten wildly in anticipation. And her curiosity would perhaps have been mixed with a secret admiration for a person who had been so attractive as to make M. de Charlus, as a rule so kind to her, deaf to her entreaties. How often, in her grief mingled with hatred and, in spite of everything, a certain fellow-feeling, must she not have attributed the most noble features to that person, whether she believed it to be a man or a woman! And then, on seeing this creature, ugly, pimpled, vulgar, with red-rimmed, myopic eyes, what a shock! Doubtless the cause of our sorrows, embodied in a human form beloved of another, is sometimes comprehensible to us; the Trojan elders, seeing Helen pass by, said to one another:

  One single glance from her eclipses all our griefs.

  But the opposite is perhaps more common, because (just as, conversely, admirable and beautiful wives are always being abandoned by their husbands) it often happens that people who are ugly in the eyes of almost everyone excite inexplicable passions; for what Leonardo said of painting can equally well be said of love, that it is cosa mentale, something in the mind. Moreover one cannot even say that the reaction of the Trojan elders is more or less common than the other (stupefaction on seeing the person who has caused our sorrows): for one has only to let a little time go by and the case of the Trojan elders almost always merges with the other; in other words there is only one case. Had the Trojan elders never seen Helen, and had she been fated to grow old and ugly, if one had said to them one day: “You’re about to see the famous Helen,” it is probable that, confronted with a dumpy, red-faced, misshapen old woman, they would have been no less stupefied than the Princesse de Guermantes would have been at the sight of the bus conductor.

  In place of this paragraph, the manuscript gives the following long development:

  Moving away from the dazzling “house of pleasure” insolently erected there despite the protests fruitlessly addressed to the mayor by the local families, I made for the cliffs and followed the sinuous paths leading towards Balbec. And I remembered certain walks along these paths with my grandmother. I had had a brief meeting earlier with a local doctor whom I was never to see again and who had told me that my grandmother would die soon; he was one of those people, perhaps malevolent, perhaps mad, perhaps afflicted with a fear of death which they want to induce in others as well, who later remind one of those witch-like vagrants encountered on a roadside who hurl some baneful and plausible prophecy at you. It was the first time I had thought of the possibility of her death. I could neither confide my anguish to her nor bear it myself when she left me. And whenever we took some particularly beautiful path together, I told myself that one day she would no longer be there when I took that path, and the mere idea that she would die one day turned my happiness in being with her to such torment that what I longed to do more than anything else was to forestall her and to die myself then and there. Now it was these same paths or similar ones that I was taking, and already the anguish I had felt in the train was fading, and if I had met Rosemonde [Albertine] I would have asked her to come with me. Suddenly I was attracted by the scent of the hawthorns which, as at Combray in the month of May, array themselves alongside a hedge in their large white veils and decorate this green French countryside with the Catholic whiteness of their demure procession. I went nearer, but my eyes did not know at what adjustment to set their optical apparatus in order to see the flowers at the same time along the hedge and in myself. Belonging at one and the same time to many springtimes, the petals stood out against a sort of magical deep background which, in spite of the strong sunlight, was plunged in semi-darkness either because of the twilight of my indistinct memories or because of the nocturnal hour of the Month of Mary. And then, in the flower which opened up before me in the hedge and which seemed to be animated by the clumsy flickering of my blurred and double vision, the flower that rose from my memory revolved without being able to fit itself exactly on to the elusive living blossoms in the tremulous hesitancy of their petals.

  The hawthorns brought out the heaviness of the blossom of an apple-tree sumptuously established opposite them, like those dowryless girls of good family who, while being friends of the daughters of a big cider-maker and acknowledging their fresh complexions and good appearance, know that they themselves have more chic in their crumpled white dresses. I did not have the heart to remain beside them, and yet I had been unable to resist stopping. But Bloch’s sisters, whom I caught sight of without their seeing me, did not even turn their heads towards the hawthorns. The latter had made no sign to them, had said nothing to them; they were like those devout young girls who never miss a Month of Mary, during which they are not afraid to steal a glance at a young man with whom they will make an assignation in the countryside, and by whom they will even allow themselves to be kissed in the chapel when there is no one about, but would never dream—because it has been strictly forbidden—of speaking to or playing with children of another religion.

  Synopsis

  PART ONE

  Discovery concerning M. de Charlus. Reflections on the laws of the vegetable kingdom. Meeting between M. de Charlus and Jupien; amatory display. Eavesdropping. M. de Charlus’s revelations on the peculiarities of his amatory behaviour.

  The race of men-women. The curse that weighs upon it; its freemasonry; varieties of invert; the solitaries. The Charlus-Jupien conjunction a miracle of nature. M. de Charlus b
ecomes Jupien’s patron, to Françoise’s sentimental delight. Numerous progeny of the original Sodomites.

  PART TWO

  Chapter One

  Reception at the Princesse de Guermantes’s. My fear of not having been invited. The Duc de Châtellerault and the usher. The Princess’s social technique. Her welcome. I look for someone to introduce me to the Prince. M. de Charlus’s chattering. Professor E——. M. de Vaugoubert; his amatory tastes; Mme de Vaugoubert. M. de Charlus “on show”. Mme de Souvré and the cowardice of society people. Mme d’Arpajon, whose name escapes me for a moment, pretends not to hear my request to be introduced to the Prince. Failure of my clumsy request to M. de Charlus. M. de Bréauté effects the introduction. The Prince’s reserved but unaffected welcome. He takes Swann into the garden. The Hubert Robert fountain. Mme d’Arpajon gets a soaking, much to the hilarity of the Grand Duke Vladimir. A chat with the Princess. The Turkish Ambassadress. The Duchesse de Guermantes’s eyes. My progress in worldly diplomacy. Diplomatic Sodoms; references to Esther. Mme d’Amoncourt and her offers to Mme de Guermantes. Mme de Saint-Euverte recruiting for her garden-party. A slightly tarnished duchess. Mme de Guermantes’s rudeness to Mme de Chaussepierre. Different conjectures about Swann’s conversation with the Prince de Guermantes. The Duc de Guermantes’s strictures on Swann’s Dreyfusism. Mme de Guermantes refuses to meet his wife and daughter. Mme de Lambresac’s smile. Mme de Guermantes intends to forgo the Saint-Euverte garden-party, much to the delight of M. de Froberville. Beauty of Mme de Surgis-le-Duc’s two sons. Mme de Citri and her nihilism. M. de Charlus absorbed in contemplation of the Surgis boys. Swann: signs of his approaching death. Arrival of Saint-Loup, who expresses approval of his uncle Charlus’s womanising, sings the praises of bawdy-houses, and tells me of a house of assignation frequented by Mlle d’Orgeville and Mme Putbus’s chambermaid. M. de Charlus is presented to the Surgis boys by their mother. Saint-Loup’s changed attitude towards the Dreyfus case.

  Curious conversation between Swann and the Prince de Guermantes. M. de Charlus exercises his insolent wit at the expense of Mme de Saint-Euverte. Swann’s concupiscent stares at Mme de Surgis’s bosom. His account of the Prince de Guermantes’s conversion to Dreyfusism, and also his wife’s. Swann invites me to visit Gilberte. The Princesse de Guermantes’s secret passion for M. de Charlus.

  Departure and return home. M. de Guermantes takes leave of his brother: affectionate reminiscences and a gaffe. I leave with the Duke and Duchess: scene on the staircase. Mme de Gallardon. Mme d’Orvillers. Return home in the Guermantes’ coupé. The Duchess’s refusal to introduce me to Baroness Putbus. The Guermantes prepare for their fancy-dress ball in spite of the death of their cousin d’Osmond.

  Visit from Albertine. Françoise and her daughter. Linguistic geography. I await Albertine’s arrival with growing anxiety. A telephone call from Albertine. “This terrible need of a person”: my mother and Albertine. How Françoise announces Albertine; the latter’s visit. Afterwards I write to Gilberte Swann, with none of the emotion of old. The Duc de Guermantes’s conversion to Dreyfusism.

  Social visiting before my second trip to Balbec. I continue to see other fairies and their dwellings. Changes in the social picture; the Verdurin salon and the rise of Odette’s salon, centred round Bergotte. Mme de Montmorency.

  The Intermittencies of the Heart

  My second stay in Balbec. The hotel manager’s malapropisms. Principal motive for coming to Balbec: the hope of meeting at the Verdurins’ Mme de Putbus’s maid and other unknown beauties. Upheaval of my entire being: the living presence of my grandmother is restored to me; at the same time I discover that I have lost her for ever. My dream, my awakening and my heart-rending memories. A message from Albertine: I have no desire to see her, or anyone. An invitation from Mme de Cambremer, which I decline. My grief, however, is less profound than my mother’s. Her resemblance to my grandmother. Meeting with Mme Poussin. The new young page at the hotel and the domestic staff from the chorus of Athalie. Françoise’s revelations about the circumstances in which Saint-Loup’s photograph of my grandmother had been taken. Further revelations, from the manager: my grandmother’s syncopes. Another dream about her. I suddenly decide to see Albertine. Apple-trees in blossom.

  Chapter Two

  Resumption of intimacy with Albertine, and first suspicions. My grief at the death of my grandmother wanes and Albertine begins to inspire me with a desire for happiness. Sudden return of my grief in the little train. Albertine’s visit to Balbec. The Princesse de Parme. My links with Albertine’s friends. The lift-boy goes to fetch her: his manners and his speech. Beginnings of my mistrust of Albertine: Cottard’s remark while she is dancing with Andrée. Albertine fails to turn up one evening. Painful curiosity about her secret life. Her lies about her proposed visit to a lady in Infreville. In the casino at Balbec: the girls she sees in the mirror. The memory of Odette’s character applied to Albertine.

  Visit from Mme de Cambremer while I am on the esplanade with Albertine and her friends. Her paraphernalia. Her daughter-in-law’s two forms of politeness. Etymological curiosities. Aesthetic prejudices and snobbery of the young Mme de Cambremer; evolution of artistic theories; her pronunciation of Chenouville. She has forgotten her Legrandin origins. The Cambremers’ friend, a worshipper at the shrine of Le Sidaner.

  Albertine comes up to my room. The lift-boy’s anxious and despondent air; its cause: the absence of the customary tip. The hotel staff and money. My calculated protestations of coldness towards Albertine and love for Andrée. Albertine denies having had relations with Andrée. Reconciliation and caresses. Excursions with Albertine. Brief desires for other girls. Jealousy.

  Scandal in the Grand Hotel provoked by Bloch’s sister and an actress, hushed up through the good offices of M. Nissim Bernard. Why the latter likes the hotel. My friendship with two young “couriers”; their language. Renewed suspicions about Albertine’s Gomorrhan proclivities: the unknown woman in the casino; suspect rudeness to a friend of her aunt’s. M. Nissim Bernard and the tomatoes. I go to Doncières with Albertine. A fat, vulgar, pretentious lady on the train. Albertine and Saint-Loup. M. de Charlus appears on the platform at Doncières. His first meeting with Morel.

  An evening with the Verdurins at La Raspelière. The little train and its “habitués”: Cottard, Ski, Brichot. Social development of the Verdurin salon. Saniette; Ski. Princess Sherbatoff. Cottard and the Verdurin “Wednesdays”. The handsome unknown girl with the cigarette. Mme Verdurin has invited the Cambremers, whose tenant she is. Remarks of the “faithful” about the Cambremers. Brichot’s etymologies. I recognise Princess Sherbatoff as the fat lady in the train to Doncières. News of the death of Dechambre, formerly Mme Verdurin’s favourite pianist. Mme Verdurin and the death of the faithful. Beauty of the countryside. Dechambre disowned in the interests of Morel, who is coming with Charlus. The latter’s sexual proclivities better known among the “faithful” than in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The Verdurins’ indifference to the beauties of nature.

  Arrival of Morel and M. de Charlus; evidence of the latter’s femininity. Morel’s request to me; his rudeness once he has obtained satisfaction. Arrival of the Cambremers, he vulgarly ugly, she haughty and morose; introductions. Mme Verdurin and social etiquette. The Cambremers’ garden. M. de Charlus’s momentary mistake about Cottard. The name Chantepie. Combination of culture and snobbery in Mme de Cambremer. M. de Cambremer takes an interest in my fits of breathlessness. My mother and Albertine.

  More etymology from Brichot. The Norwegian philosopher. M. Verdurin bullies Saniette. Conversation about Elstir. A letter from the dowager Marquise de Cambremer: the rule of the three adjectives. M. de Charlus’s claim to the rank of Highness. The Verdurins’ attitude to Brichot. M. de Charlus’s historical anecdotes. Mme de Cambremer’s musical snobbery. Brichot holds forth. M. de Charlus and the Archangel Michael. M. de Cambremer discovers the identity of Professor Cottard. Mme Cottard dozes off. Sleeping draughts. A game of cards. The arms of t
he Arrachepels. M. de Charlus expresses a preference for strawberry-juice. His first skirmish with Mme Verdurin. She invites me to her next “Wednesday” with my “cousin” and even suggests that I should bring her to stay. Renewed outburst by M. Verdurin against Saniette. Cottard and du Boulbon. M. de Cambremer’s tip. Mme de Cambremer’s good-bye.

  Chapter Three

  The squinting page. Sleep after a visit to La Raspelière; reflections on sleep. M. de Charlus dines at the Grand Hotel with a footman. His strange letter to Aimé.

  Excursions with Albertine. Through the forest of Chantepie. Presents for Albertine. Virtues of the motor-car. Visit to the Verdurins. The “views” from La Raspelière. Charm of social life in the country. Other customers of our chauffeur: Charlus and Morel. One of their luncheons on the coast. Morel’s cynical projects and the Baron’s sensual excitement. My obsession with Albertine. Norman churches. A loving couple. My increasing jealousy: the Rivebelle waiter. Remonstrances from my mother and their negative effect. Evening assignations with Albertine followed by morning anxiety about her day-time activities. A lesson in the use of words from the lift-boy. Weariness of life with Albertine. The aeroplane.

  Morel, the chauffeur, and Mme Verdurin’s coachman. Morel’s change of attitude towards me; his composite character. Charm of setting out for La Raspelière on late summer evenings. M. de Charlus in the little train. He becomes temporarily the faithfullest of the faithful. Princess Sherbatoff gives me the cold shoulder after a meeting on the train with Mme de Villeparisis. M. de Charlus’s blindness. Discussion between Brichot and Charlus about Chateaubriand and Balzac. M. de Charlus’s discretion about his favourite subject in Morel’s presence. Albertine’s clothes, inspired by Elstir’s taste, admired by M. de Charlus. Morel’s admiration for my great-uncle and his house. M. de Charlus’s “Balzacian” melancholy. Morel reminds me of Rachel.