But on thinking it over, I found another reason for my disinclination to remain in the Ambassadress’s company. It was not so very long since, at “Oriane’s,” this same diplomatic personage had said to me, with a purposeful and serious air, that she found the Princesse de Guermantes frankly antipathetic. I felt that I need not stop to consider this change of front: the invitation to the party this evening had brought it about. The Ambassadress was perfectly sincere in saying that the Princesse de Guermantes was a sublime creature. She had always thought so. But, having never before been invited to the Princess’s house, she had felt herself bound to give this non-invitation the appearance of a deliberate abstention on principle. Now that she had been asked, and would presumably continue to be asked in the future, she could give free expression to her feelings. There is no need, in accounting for nine out of ten of the opinions that we hold about other people, to go so far as crossed love or exclusion from public office. Our judgment remains uncertain: the withholding or bestowal of an invitation determines it. At all events, the Turkish Ambassadress, as the Duchesse de Guermantes remarked while making a tour of inspection through the rooms with me, “looked well.” She was, above all, extremely useful. The real stars of society are tired of appearing there. He who is curious to gaze at them must often migrate to another hemisphere, where they are more or less alone. But women like the Ottoman Ambassadress, a newcomer to society, are never weary of shining there, and, so to speak, everywhere at once. They are of value at entertainments of the sort known as receptions or routs, to which they would let themselves be dragged from their deathbeds rather than miss one. They are the supers upon whom a hostess can always count, determined never to miss a party. Hence foolish young men, unaware that they are false stars, take them for the queens of fashion, whereas it would require a formal lecture to explain to them by virtue of what reasons Mme Standish, who remains unknown to them, painting cushions far away from society, is at least as great a lady as the Duchesse de Doudeauville.
In the ordinary course of life, the eyes of the Duchesse de Guermantes were abstracted and slightly melancholy; she made them sparkle with a flame of wit only when she had to greet some friend or other, precisely as though the said friend had been some witty remark, some charming touch, some treat for delicate palates, the sampling of which has brought an expression of refined delight to the face of the connoisseur. But at big receptions, as she had too many greetings to bestow, she decided that it would be tiring to have to switch off the light after each. Just as a literary enthusiast, when he goes to the theatre to see a new play by one of the masters of the stage, testifies to his certainty that he is not going to spend a dull evening by having, while he hands his hat and coat to the attendant, his lip adjusted in readiness for a sapient smile, his eye kindled for knowing approval; similarly it was from the very moment of her arrival that the Duchess lit up for the whole evening. And while she was handing over her evening cloak, of a magnificent Tiepolo red, exposing a huge collar of rubies round her neck, having cast over her dress that final rapid, meticulous and exhaustive dressmaker’s glance which is also that of a woman of the world, Oriane made sure that her eyes were sparkling no less brightly than her other jewels. In vain did sundry “kind friends” such as M. de Jouville fling themselves upon the Duke to keep him from entering: “But don’t you know that poor Mama is at the point of death? He has just been given the last sacraments.” “I know, I know,” answered M. de Guermantes, thrusting the tiresome fellow aside in order to enter the room. “The viaticum has had an excellent effect,” he added with a smile of pleasure at the thought of the ball which he was determined not to miss after the Prince’s party. “We didn’t want people to know that we had come back,” the Duchess said to me, unaware of the fact that the Princess had already disproved this statement by telling me that she had seen her cousin for a moment and that she had promised to come. The Duke, after a protracted stare with which he proceeded to crush his wife for the space of five minutes, observed: “I told Oriane about your misgivings.” Now that she saw that they were unfounded, and that she need take no action to dispel them, she pronounced them absurd, and went on chaffing me about them. “The idea of supposing that you weren’t invited! One’s always invited! Besides, there was me. Do you think I couldn’t have got you an invitation to my cousin’s house?” I must admit that subsequently she often did things for me that were far more difficult; nevertheless, I took care not to interpret her words in the sense that I had been too modest. I was beginning to learn the exact value of the language, spoken or mute, of aristocratic affability, an affability that is happy to shed balm upon the sense of inferiority of those towards whom it is directed, though not to the point of dispelling that inferiority, for in that case it would no longer have any raison d’être. “But you are our equal, if not our superior,” the Guermantes seemed, in all their actions, to be saying; and they said it in the nicest way imaginable, in order to be loved and admired, but not to be believed; that one should discern the fictitious character of this affability was what they called being well-bred; to suppose it to be genuine, a sign of ill-breeding. Shortly after this, as it happened, I was to receive a lesson which finally enlightened me, with the most perfect accuracy, as to the extent and limits of certain forms of aristocratic affability. It was at an afternoon party given by the Duchesse de Montmorency for the Queen of England. There was a sort of royal procession to the buffet, at the head of which walked Her Majesty on the arm of the Duc de Guermantes. I happened to arrive at that moment. With his free hand the Duke conveyed to me, from a distance of nearly fifty yards, countless signs of friendly welcome, which appeared to mean that I need not be afraid to approach, that I should not be devoured alive instead of the sandwiches. But I, who was becoming word-perfect in the language of the court, instead of going even one step nearer, made a deep bow from where I was, without smiling, the sort of bow that I should have made to someone I scarcely knew, then proceeded in the opposite direction. Had I written a masterpiece, the Guermantes would have given me less credit for it than I earned by that bow. Not only did it not pass unperceived by the Duke, although he had that day to acknowledge the greetings of more than five hundred people; it also caught the eye of the Duchess, who, happening to meet my mother, told her of it, and, so far from suggesting that I had done wrong, that I ought to have gone up to him, said that her husband had been lost in admiration of my bow, that it would have been impossible for anyone to put more into it. They never ceased to find in that bow every possible merit, without however mentioning the one which had seemed the most precious of all, to wit that it had been tactful; nor did they cease to pay me compliments which I understood to be even less a reward for the past than a hint for the future, after the fashion of a hint delicately conveyed to his pupils by the head of an educational establishment: “Do not forget, my boys, that these prizes are intended not so much for you as for your parents, so that they may send you back next term.” So it was that Mme de Marsantes, when someone from a different world entered her circle, would praise in his hearing those unobtrusive people “who are there when you want them and the rest of the time let you forget their existence,” as one indirectly reminds a servant who smells that the practice of taking a bath is beneficial to the health.
While, before she had even left the entrance hall, I was talking to Mme de Guermantes, I could hear a voice of a sort which henceforth I was able to identify without the least possibility of error. It was, in this particular instance, the voice of M. de Vaugoubert talking to M. de Charlus. A skilled physician need not even make his patient unbutton his shirt, nor listen to his breathing—the sound of his voice is enough. How often, in time to come, was my ear to be caught in a drawing-room by the intonation or laughter of some man whose artificial voice, for all that he was reproducing exactly the language of his profession or the manners of his class, affecting a stern aloofness or a coarse familiarity, was enough to indicate “He is a Charlus” to my trained ear, like the note of a t
uning-fork! At that moment the entire staff of one of the embassies went past, pausing to greet M. de Charlus. For all that my discovery of the sort of malady in question dated only from that afternoon (when I had surprised M. de Charlus with Jupien) I should have had no need to ask questions or to sound the chest before giving a diagnosis. But M. de Vaugoubert, when talking to M. de Charlus, appeared uncertain. And yet he should have known where he stood after the doubts of his adolescence. The invert believes himself to be the only one of his kind in the universe; it is only in later years that he imagines—another exaggeration—that the unique exception is the normal man. But, ambitious and timorous, M. de Vaugoubert had not for many years past surrendered himself to what would to him have meant pleasure. The career of diplomacy had had the same effect upon his life as taking orders. Combined with his assiduous frequentation of the School of Political Sciences, it had doomed him from his twentieth year to the chastity of a Desert Father. And so, as each of our senses loses some of its strength and keenness, becomes atrophied when it is no longer exercised, M. de Vaugoubert, just as the civilised man is no longer capable of the feats of strength, of the acuteness of hearing of the cave-dweller, had lost that special perspicacity which was rarely lacking in M. de Charlus; and at official banquets, whether in Paris or abroad, the Minister Plenipotentiary was no longer capable of identifying those who, beneath the disguise of their uniform, were at heart his congeners. Certain names mentioned by M. de Charlus, indignant if he himself was cited for his inclinations, but always delighted to give away those of other people, caused M. de Vaugoubert an exquisite surprise. Not that, after all these years, he dreamed of taking advantage of any windfall. But these rapid revelations, similar to those which in Racine’s tragedies inform Athalie and Abner that Joas is of the House of David, that Esther, “enthroned in the purple,” has “Yid” parents, changing the aspect of the X——Legation, or of one or another department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rendered those palaces as mysterious, in retrospect, as the Temple at Jerusalem or the throne-room at Susa. At the sight of the youthful staff of his embassy advancing in a body to shake hands with M. de Charlus, M. de Vaugoubert assumed the astonished air of Elise exclaiming, in Esther: “Great heavens! What a swarm of innocent beauties issuing from all sides presents itself to my gaze! How charming a modesty is depicted on their faces!” Then, athirst for more definite information, he glanced smilingly at M. de Charlus with a fatuously interrogative and concupiscent expression: “Why, of course they are,” said M. de Charlus with the learned air of a scholar speaking to an ignoramus. From that instant M. de Vaugoubert (greatly to the annoyance of M. de Charlus) could not tear his eyes away from these young secretaries whom the X——Ambassador to France, an old stager, had not chosen blindfold. M. de Vaugoubert remained silent; I could only see his eyes. But, being accustomed from my childhood to apply, even to what is voiceless, the language of the classics, I read into M. de Vaugoubert’s eyes the lines in which Esther explains to Elise that Mordecai, in his zeal for his religion, has made it a rule that only those maidens who profess it shall be employed about the Queen’s person. “And now his love for our nation has peopled this palace with daughters of Zion, young and tender flowers wafted by fate, transplanted like myself beneath a foreign sky. In a place set apart from profane eyes, he” (the worthy Ambassador) “devotes his skill and labour to shaping them.”
At length M. de Vaugoubert spoke, otherwise than with his eyes. “Who knows,” he said sadly, “whether in the country where I live the same thing does not exist also?” “It is probable,” replied M. de Charlus, “starting with King Theodosius, though I don’t know anything definite about him.” “Oh, dear, no! not in the least!” “Then he has no right to look it so completely. Besides, he has all the little tricks. He has that ‘my dear’ manner, which I detest more than anything in the world. I should never dare to be seen walking in the street with him. Anyhow, you must know him for what he is, it’s common knowledge.” “You’re entirely mistaken about him. In any case he’s quite charming. On the day the agreement with France was signed, the King embraced me. I’ve never been so moved.” “That was the moment to tell him what you wanted.” “Oh, good heavens! What an idea! If he were even to suspect such a thing! But I have no fear in that direction.” Words which I heard, for I was standing close by, and which made me recite to myself: “The King unto this day knows not who I am, and this secret keeps my tongue still enchained.”
This dialogue, half mute, half spoken, had lasted only a few moments, and I had barely entered the first of the drawing-rooms with the Duchesse de Guermantes, when a little dark lady, extremely pretty, stopped her:
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. D’Annunzio saw you from a box in the theatre, and he wrote the Princesse de T—— a letter in which he says that he never saw anything so lovely. He would give his life for ten minutes’ conversation with you. In any case, even if you can’t or won’t, the letter is in my possession. You must fix a day to come and see me. There are some secrets which I cannot tell you here. I see you don’t remember me,” she added, turning to me; “I met you at the Princesse de Parme’s” (where I had never been). “The Emperor of Russia is anxious for your father to be sent to Petersburg. If you could come in on Tuesday, Isvolski himself will be there, and he’ll talk to you about it. I have a present for you, my dear,” she went on, turning back to the Duchess, “which I should not dream of giving to anyone but you. The manuscripts of three of Ibsen’s plays, which he sent to me by his old attendant. I shall keep one and give you the other two.”
The Duc de Guermantes was not overpleased by these offers. Uncertain whether Ibsen or D’Annunzio were dead or alive, he could see in his mind’s eye a tribe of authors and playwrights coming to call upon his wife and putting her in their works. People in society are too apt to think of a book as a sort of cube one side of which has been removed, so that the author can at once “put in” the people he meets. This is obviously rather underhand, and writers are a pretty low class. True, it’s not a bad thing to meet them once in a way, for thanks to them, when one reads a book or an article, one “gets to know the inside story,” one “sees people in their true colours.” On the whole, though, the wisest thing is to stick to dead authors. M. de Guermantes considered “perfectly decent” only the gentleman who did the funeral notices in the Gaulois. He, at any rate, was content to include M. de Guermantes at the head of the list of people present “among others” at funerals at which the Duke had given his name. When he preferred that his name should not appear, instead of giving it, he sent a letter of condolence to the relatives of the deceased, assuring them of his deep and heartfelt sympathy. If, then, the family inserted an announcement in the paper: “Among the letters received, we may mention one from the Duc de Guermantes,” etc., this was the fault not of the ink-slinger but of the son, brother, father of the deceased whom the Duke thereupon denounced as upstarts, and with whom he decided for the future to have no further dealings (what he called, not being very well up in the meaning of such expressions, “having a bone to pick”). At all events, the names of Ibsen and D’Annunzio, and his uncertainty as to their continued survival, brought a frown to the brow of the Duke, who was not yet far enough away from us to avoid hearing the various blandishments of Mme Timoléon d’Amoncourt. She was a charming woman, her wit, like her beauty, so entrancing that either of them by itself would have made her shine. But, born outside the world in which she now lived, having aspired at first merely to a literary salon, the friend successively—by no means the lover, her morals were above reproach—and exclusively of all the great writers, who gave her their manuscripts, wrote books for her, chance having once introduced her into the Faubourg Saint-Germain, these literary privileges served her well there. She was now in a position where she had no need to dispense other graces than those shed by her presence. But, accustomed in the past to worldly wisdom, social wiles, services to render, she persevered in these things even when they were no longer ne
cessary. She had always a state secret to reveal to you, a potentate whom you must meet, a water-colour by a master to present to you. There was indeed in all these superfluous attractions a trace of falsehood, but they made her life a comedy that scintillated with complications, and it was true to say that she was responsible for the appointment of prefects and generals.
As she strolled by my side, the Duchesse de Guermantes allowed the azure light of her eyes to float in front of her, but vaguely, so as to avoid the people with whom she did not wish to enter into relations, whose presence she discerned from time to time like a menacing reef in the distance. We advanced between a double hedge of guests, who, conscious that they would never come to know “Oriane,” were anxious at least to point her out, as a curiosity, to their wives: “Quick, Ursule, come and look at Madame de Guermantes talking to that young man.” And one felt that in another moment they would be clambering upon the chairs for a better view, as at the military review on the 14th July or the Grand Prix at Longchamp. Not that the Duchesse de Guermantes had a more aristocratic salon than her cousin. The former’s was frequented by people whom the latter would never have been willing to invite, chiefly because of her husband. She would never have been at home to Mme Alphonse de Rothschild, who, an intimate friend of Mme de La Trémoïlle and of Mme de Sagan, as was Oriane herself, was constantly to be seen in the house of the last-named. It was the same with Baron Hirsch, whom the Prince of Wales had brought to her house but not to that of the Princess, who would not have approved of him, and also with certain outstanding Bonapartist or even Republican celebrities whom the Duchess found interesting but whom the Prince, a convinced Royalist, would on principle not have allowed inside his house. His anti-semitism, being also founded on principle, did not yield before any social distinction, however strongly accredited, and if he was at home to Swann, whose friend he had been from time immemorial—being, however, the only Guermantes who addressed him as Swann and not as Charles—this was because, knowing that Swann’s grandmother, a Protestant married to a Jew, had been the Duc de Berry’s mistress, he endeavoured, from time to time, to believe in the legend which made out Swann’s father to be that prince’s natural son. On this hypothesis, which incidentally was false, Swann, the son of a Catholic father himself the son of a Bourbon by a Catholic mother, was a Gentile to his fingertips.
The Modern Library In Search of Lost Time, Complete and Unabridged : 6-Book Bundle Page 205
