“Still no news, I suppose, of the violinist,” said Cottard. For the event of the day in the little clan was the defection of Mme Verdurin’s favourite violinist. The latter, who was doing his military service near Doncières, came three times a week to dine at La Raspelière, having a midnight pass. But two days ago, for the first time, the faithful had been unable to discover him on the train. It was assumed that he had missed it. But in vain had Mme Verdurin sent to meet the next train, and the next, and so on until the last, the carriage had returned empty.
“He’s certain to have been put in the glasshouse,” Cottard went on, “there’s no other explanation of his desertion. Oh yes, in the Army, you know, with those fellows, it only needs a crusty sergeant-major.”
“It will be all the more mortifying for Mme Verdurin,” said Brichot, “if he defects again this evening, because our kind hostess has invited to dinner for the first time the neighbours from whom she rented La Raspelière, the Marquis and Marquise de Cambremer.”
“This evening, the Marquis and Marquise de Cambremer!” exclaimed Cottard. “But I knew absolutely nothing about it. Naturally, I knew like everybody else that they would be coming one day, but I had no idea it was to be so soon. By Jove!” he went on, turning to me, “what did I tell you? The Princess Sherbatoff, the Marquis and Marquise de Cambremer.” And, after repeating these names, lulling himself with their melody: “You see that we move in good company,” he said to me. “No doubt about it, for your first appearance you’ve really struck lucky. It’s going to be an exceptionally brilliant roomful.” And, turning to Brichot, he went on: “The Mistress will be furious. It’s time we got there to lend her a hand.”
Ever since Mme Verdurin had been at La Raspelière she had pretended for the benefit of the faithful to be under the disagreeable obligation of inviting her landlords for one evening. By so doing she would obtain better terms next year, she explained, and was inviting them merely out of self-interest. But she affected to regard with such terror, to make such a bugbear of the idea of dining with people who did not belong to the little group, that she kept putting off the evil day. The prospect did indeed alarm her slightly for the reasons which she professed, albeit exaggerating them, if at the same time it enchanted her for reasons of snobbery which she preferred to keep to herself. She was therefore partly sincere, for she believed the little clan to be something so unique, one of those perfect entities which it takes centuries to produce, that she trembled at the thought of seeing these provincials, ignorant of the Ring and the Meistersinger, introduced into its midst, people who would be unable to play their part in the concert of general conversation and were capable of ruining one of those famous Wednesdays, masterpieces as incomparably fragile as those Venetian glasses which one false note is enough to shatter. “Besides, they’re bound to be absolutely anti, and jingoistic,” M. Verdurin had said. “Oh, as to that I don’t really mind, we’ve heard quite enough about that business,” Mme Verdurin had replied, for, though a sincere Dreyfusard, she would nevertheless have been glad to discover a social counterpoise to the preponderant Dreyfusism of her salon. For Dreyfusism was triumphant politically but not socially. Labori, Reinach, Picquart, Zola were still, to people in society, more or less traitors, who could only keep them estranged from the little nucleus. And so, after this incursion into politics, Mme Verdurin was anxious to return to the world of art. Besides, were not d’Indy and Debussy on the “wrong” side in the Affair! “As far as the Affair goes, we have only to put them beside Brichot,” she said (the Professor being the only one of the faithful who had sided with the General Staff, thus forfeiting a great deal of esteem in the eyes of Mme Verdurin). “There’s no need to be eternally discussing the Dreyfus case. No, the fact of the matter is that the Cambremers bore me.” As for the faithful, no less excited by their unavowed desire to meet the Cambremers than they were taken in by Mme Verdurin’s affected reluctance to invite them, they returned, day after day, in conversation with her, to the base arguments which she herself produced in favour of the invitation, and tried to make them irresistible. “Make up your mind to it once and for all,” Cottard repeated, “and you’ll get a reduction of the rent, they’ll pay the gardener, you’ll have the use of the meadow. That will be well worth a boring evening. I’m thinking only of you,” he added, though his heart had leapt once when, in Mme Verdurin’s carriage, he had passed old Mme de Cambremer’s on the road, and he felt humiliated in front of the railway employees when he found himself standing beside the Marquis at the station. For their part, the Cambremers, living much too far outside the social “swim” ever to suspect that certain ladies of fashion now spoke of Mme Verdurin with a certain respect, imagined that she was a person who could know none but Bohemians, was perhaps not even legally married, and so far as people of “birth” were concerned would never meet any but themselves. They had resigned themselves to the thought of dining with her only in order to be on good terms with a tenant who, they hoped, would return again for many seasons, especially since they had learned, during the previous month, that she had recently inherited all those millions. It was in silence and without any vulgar pleasantries that they prepared themselves for the fatal day. The faithful had given up hope of its ever coming, so often had Mme Verdurin already fixed in their hearing a date that was invariably postponed. These false alarms were intended not merely to make a show of the boredom that she felt at the thought of this dinner-party, but to keep in suspense those members of the little group who were staying in the neighbourhood and were sometimes inclined to default. Not that the Mistress guessed that the “great day” was as delightful a prospect to them as to herself, but in order that, having persuaded them that this dinner-party was for her the most terrible of chores, she might appeal to their devotedness. “You’re not going to leave me all alone with those freaks! We must assemble in full force to stand the boredom. Naturally we shan’t be able to talk about any of the things that interest us. It will be a Wednesday spoiled, but what is one to do!”
“Actually,” Brichot observed for my benefit, “I fancy that Mme Verdurin, who is highly intelligent and takes infinite pains in the elaboration of her Wednesdays, was by no means anxious to entertain these squireens of ancient lineage but small wit. She could not bring herself to invite the dowager Marquise, but has resigned herself to having the son and daughter-in-law.”
“Ah! we are to see the young Marquise de Cambremer?” said Cottard with a smile into which he felt called upon to introduce a tinge of lecherous gallantry, although he had no idea whether Mme de Cambremer was goodlooking or not. But the title of Marquise conjured up in his mind images of glamour and dalliance.
“Ah! I know her,” said Ski, who had met her once when he was out for a drive with Mme Verdurin.
“Not in the biblical sense of the word, I trust,” said the doctor, darting a sly glance through his eyeglass; this was one of his favourite pleasantries.
“She is intelligent,” Ski informed me. “Naturally,” he went on, seeing that I said nothing, and dwelling with a smile upon each word, “she is intelligent and at the same time she is not, she lacks education, she is frivolous, but she has an instinct for pretty things. She may say nothing, but she will never say anything silly. And besides, her colouring is charming. She would be fun to paint,” he added, half shutting his eyes as though he saw her posing in front of him.
As my opinion of her was quite the opposite of what Ski was expressing with so many qualifications, I observed merely that she was the sister of a very distinguished engineer, M. Legrandin.
“There, you see, you are going to be introduced to a pretty woman,” Brichot said to me, “and one never knows what may come of that. Cleopatra was not even a great lady, she was the little woman, the thoughtless, dreadful little woman of our Meilhac, and just think of the consequences, not only to that dupe Antony, but to the whole of the ancient world.”
“I’ve already been introduced to Mme de Cambremer,” I replied.
“Ah
! In that case, you will find yourself on familiar ground.”
“I shall be all the more delighted to meet her,” I answered him, “because she has promised me a book by the former curé of Combray about the place-names of this region, and I shall be able to remind her of her promise. I’m interested in that priest, and also in etymologies.”
“Don’t put too much faith in the ones he gives,” replied Brichot, “there’s a copy of the book at La Raspelière, which I’ve glanced through casually without finding anything of any value; it’s riddled with errors. Let me give you an example. The word bricq is found in a number of place-names in this neighbourhood. The worthy cleric had the distinctly eccentric idea that it comes from briga, a height, a fortified place. He finds it already in the Celtic tribes, Latobriges, Nemetobriges, and so forth, and traces it down to such names as Briand, Brion, and so forth. To confine ourselves to the region through which we have the pleasure of travelling with you at this moment, Bricquebosc, according to him, would mean the wood on the height, Bricqueville the habitation on the height, Bricquebec, where we shall be stopping presently before coming to Maineville, the height by the stream. Now it’s not like that at all, since bricq is the old Norse word which means simply a bridge. Just as fleur, which Mme de Cambremer’s protégé takes infinite pains to connect, in one place with the Scandinavian words floi, flo, in another with the Irish words ae and aer, is on the contrary, beyond any doubt, the fjord of the Danes, and means harbour. Similarly, the excellent priest thinks that the station of Saint-Martin-le-Vêtu, which adjoins La Raspelière, means Saint-Martin-le-Vieux (vetus). It is unquestionable that the word vieux has played an important part in the toponymy of this region. Vieux comes as a rule from vadum, and means a ford, as at the place called les Vieux. It is what the English call ford (Oxford, Hereford). But, in this particular instance, Vêtu is derived not from vetus, but from vastatus, a place that is devastated and bare. You have, round about here, Sottevast, the vast of Setold, Brillevast, the vast of Berold. I am all the more certain of the curé’s mistake in that Saint-Martin-le-Vêtu was formerly called Saint-Martin-du-Gast and even Saint-Martin-de-Terregate. Now the v and the g in these words are the same letter. We say dévaster, but also gâcher. Jachères and gâtines11 (from the High German wastinna) have the same meaning: Terregate is therefore terra vastata. As for Saint-Mars, formerly (evil be to him who evil thinks) Saint-Merd, it is Saint-Medardus, which appears variously as Saint-Médard, Saint-Mard, Saint-Marc, CinqMars, and even Dammas. Nor must we forget that, quite close to here, places bearing the name Mars simply attest to a pagan origin (the god Mars) which has remained alive in this country but which the holy man refuses to recognise. The high places dedicated to the gods are especially frequent, such as the mount of Jupiter (Jeumont). Your curé declines to admit this, and yet, on the other hand, wherever Christianity has left traces, they escape him. He has gone as far afield as Loctudy, a barbarian name, according to him, whereas it is Locus sancti Tudeni; nor, in the name Sammercoles, has he divined Sanctus Martialis. Your curé,” Brichot continued, seeing that I was interested, “derives the terminations hon, home, holm, from the word holl (hullus), a hill, whereas it comes from the Norse holm, an island, with which you are familiar in Stockholm, and which is so widespread throughout this region: la Houlme, Engohomme, Tahoume, Robehomme, Néhomme, Quettehou, and so forth.”
These names reminded me of the day when Albertine had wished to go to Amfreville-la-Bigot (from the name of two successive lords of the manor, Brichot told me), and had then suggested that we should dine together at Robehomme. “Isn’t Néhomme,” I asked, “somewhere near Carquethuit and Clitourps?”
“Precisely; Néhomme is the holm, the island or peninsula of the famous Viscount Nigel, whose name has survived also in Néville. The Carquethuit and Clitourps that you mention provide Mme de Cambremer’s protégé with an occasion for further errors. Of course he realises that carque is a church, the Kirche of the Germans. You will remember Querqueville, Carquebut, not to mention Dunkerque. For there we should do better to stop and consider the famous word dun, which to the Celts meant high ground. And that you will find over the whole of France. Your abbé was hypnotised by Duneville. But in the Eure-et-Loir he would have found Châteaudun, Dunle-Roi in the Cher, Duneau in the Sarthe, Dun in the Ariège, Dune-les-Places in the Nièvre, and many others. This word dun leads him into a curious error with regard to Douville, where we shall be alighting, where we shall find Mme Verdurin’s comfortable carriages awaiting us. Douville, in Latin donvilla, says he. And Douville does indeed lie at the foot of high hills. Your curé, who knows everything, feels all the same that he has made a blunder. And indeed he has found, in an old cartulary, the name Domvilla. Whereupon he retracts; Douville, according to him, is a fief belonging to the abbot, domino abbati, of Mont-Saint-Michel. He is delighted with the discovery, which is distinctly odd when one thinks of the scandalous life that, according to the capitulary of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, was led at Mont-Saint-Michel, though no more extraordinary than to picture the King of Denmark as suzerain of all this coast, where he encouraged the worship of Odin far more than that of Christ. On the other hand, the supposition that the n has been changed to m doesn’t shock me, and requires less alteration than the perfectly correct Lyon, which also is derived from Dun (Lugdunum). But the fact is, the abbé is mistaken. Douville was never Donville, but Doville, Eudonis villa, the village of Eudes. Douville was formerly called Escalecliff, the steps up the cliff. About the year 1233, Eudes le Bouteiller, Lord of Escalecliff, set out for the Holy Land; on the eve of his departure he made over the church to the Abbey of Blanchelande. By an exchange of courtesies, the village took his name, whence we have Douville today. But I must add that toponymy, of which moreover I know little or nothing, is not an exact science; had we not this historical evidence, Douville might quite well come from Ouville, that is to say les Eaux, the Waters. The forms in ai (Aigues-Mortes) of aqua are constantly changed to eu or ou. Now there were, quite close to Douville, certain famous springs. You can imagine that the curé was only too glad to find Christian traces there, especially as this area seems to have been pretty hard to evangelise, since successive attempts were made by St Ursal, St Gofroi, St Barsanore, St Laurent of Brèvedent, who finally handed over the task to the monks of Beaubec. But as regards tuit the writer is mistaken; he sees it as a form of toft, a building, as in Cricquetot, Ectot, Yvetot, whereas it is the thveit, the assart or reclaimed land, as in Braquetuit, le Thuit, Regnetuit, and so forth. Similarly, if he recognises in Clitourps the Norman thorp which means village, he maintains that the first syllable of the word must come from clivus, a slope, whereas it comes from cliff, a precipice. But his biggest blunders are due not so much to his ignorance as to his prejudices. However good a Frenchman one is, there is no need to fly in the face of the evidence and take Saint-Laurent-en-Bray to be the famous Roman priest, when he is actually Saint Lawrence O’Toole, Archbishop of Dublin. But even more than his patriotic sentiments, your friend’s religious bigotry leads him into outrageous errors. Thus you have not far from our hosts at La Raspelière two places called Montmartin, Montmartin-sur-Mer and Montmartin-en-Graignes. In the case of Graignes, the good curé is quite right, he has recognised that Graignes, in Latin grania, in Greek krene, means ponds, marshes; how many instances of Cresmays, Croen, Grenneville, Lengronne, could one not cite? But when he comes to Montmartin, your self-styled linguist positively insists that these must be parishes dedicated to St Martin. He bases his assertion on the fact that that saint is the patron of the two villages, but does not realise that he was only recognised as such subsequently; or rather he is blinded by his hatred of paganism; he refuses to see that we should say Mont-Saint-Martin as we say Mont-Saint-Michel if it were a question of St Martin, whereas the name Montmartin refers in a far more pagan fashion to temples dedicated to the god Mars, temples of which, it is true, no other vestige remains, but which the undisputed existence in the neighbourhood of vast Roman camps would render more pr
obable even without the name Montmartin, which removes all doubt. You see that the little book which you will find at La Raspelière is far from perfect.”
I protested that at Combray the curé had often told us about interesting etymologies.
“He was probably better on his own ground. The move to Normandy must have made him lose his bearings.”
“It didn’t restore his health,” I added, “for he came here with neurasthenia and went away again with rheumatism.”
“Ah, his neurasthenia is to blame. He has lapsed from neurasthenia into philology, as my worthy master Poquelin would have said. Tell us, Cottard, do you suppose that neurasthenia can have a pernicious effect on philology, philology a soothing effect on neurasthenia, and the relief from neurasthenia lead to rheumatism?”
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