In Search of Lost Time, Volume II (27 page)

“I do not agree with Mme Verdurin, although she is the fount of wisdom to me in all things! There’s no one like you, Odette, for finding such lovely chrysanthemums, or chrysanthema rather, for it seems that’s what we ought to call them now,” declared Mme Cottard as soon as the Mistress had shut the door behind her.

“Dear Mme Verdurin is not always very kind about other people’s flowers,” said Odette sweetly. “Whom do you go to, Odette,” asked Mme Cottard, to forestall any further criticism of the Mistress. “Lemaître? I must confess, the other day in Lemaître’s window I saw a lovely pink shrub which made me commit the wildest extravagance.” But modesty forbade her to give any more precise details as to the price of the shrub, and she said merely that the Professor, “and you know, he’s not at all a quick-tempered man,” had “flown off the handle” and told her that she “didn’t know the value of money.”

“No, no, I’ve no regular florist except Debac.” “Me too,” said Mme Cottard, “but I confess that I forsake him now and then for Lachaume.” “Oh, you’re unfaithful to him with Lachaume, are you? I must tell him that,” replied Odette, always anxious to show her wit, and to lead the conversation in her own house, where she felt more at her ease than in the little clan. “Besides, Lachaume is really becoming too dear; his prices are quite excessive, don’t you know; I find his prices indecent!” she added, laughing.

Meanwhile Mme Bontemps, who had been heard a hundred times to declare that nothing would induce her to go to the Verdurins’, delighted at being asked to the famous Wednesdays, was working out how she could manage to attend as many of them as possible. She was not aware that Mme Verdurin liked people not to miss a single one; moreover she was one of those people whose company is but little sought after who, when a hostess invites them to a series of “at homes,” instead of going to her house without more ado—like those who know that it is always a pleasure to see them—whenever they have a moment to spare and feel inclined to go out, deny themselves for example the first evening and the third, imagining that their absence will be noticed, and save themselves up for the second and fourth, unless it should happen that, having heard from a trustworthy source that the third is to be a particularly brilliant party, they reverse the original order, assuring their hostess that “most unfortunately, we had another engagement last week.” So Mme Bontemps was calculating how many Wednesdays there could still be left before Easter, and by what means she might manage to secure an extra one and yet not appear to be thrusting herself upon her hostess. She relied upon Mme Cottard, whom she would have with her in the carriage going home, to give her a few hints.

“Oh, Mme Bontemps, I see you getting up to go; it’s very bad of you to give the signal for flight like that! You owe me some compensation for not turning up last Thursday . . . Come, sit down again, just for a minute. You can’t possibly be going anywhere else before dinner. Really, you won’t let yourself be tempted?” went on Mme Swann, and, as she held out a plate of cakes, “You know, they’re not at all bad, these little horrors. They may not be much to look at, but just you taste one and you’ll see.”

“On the contrary, they look quite delicious,” broke in Mme Cottard. “In your house, Odette, one is never short of victuals. I have no need to ask to see the trade-mark; I know you get everything from Rebattet. I must say that I am more eclectic. For sweets and cakes and so forth I repair, as often as not, to Bourbonneux. But I agree that they simply don’t know what an ice means. Rebattet for everything iced, and syrups and sorbets; they’re past masters. As my husband would say, they’re the
ne plus ultra
.”

“Oh, but these are home-made. You won’t, really?” “I shan’t be able to eat a scrap of dinner,” pleaded Mme Bontemps, “but I’ll sit down again for a moment. You know, I adore talking to a clever woman like you.”

“You’ll think me highly indiscreet, Odette, but I should so like to know what you thought of the hat Mme Trombert had on. I know, of course, that big hats are the fashion just now. All the same, wasn’t it just the least little bit exaggerated? And compared to the hat she came to see me in the other day, the one she was wearing just now was microscopic!” “Oh no, I’m not at all clever,” said Odette, thinking that this sounded well. “I am a perfect simpleton, I believe everything people say, and worry myself to death over the least thing.” And she insinuated that she had, just at first, suffered terribly from having married a man like Swann who had a separate life of his own and was unfaithful to her.

Meanwhile the Prince d’Agrigente, having caught the words “I’m not at all clever,” thought it incumbent on him to protest, but unfortunately lacked the gift of repartee. “Fiddlesticks!” cried Mme Bontemps, “not clever, you!” “That’s just what I was saying to myself—‘What do I hear?’,” the Prince clutched at this straw. “My ears must have played me false!”

“No, I assure you,” went on Odette, “I’m really just an ordinary woman, very easily shocked, full of prejudices, living in my own little groove and dreadfully ignorant.” And then, in case he had any news of the Baron de Charlus, “Have you seen our dear Baronet?” she asked him.

“You, ignorant!” cried Mme Bontemps. “Then I wonder what you’d say of the official world, all those wives of Excellencies who can talk of nothing but their frocks . . . Just imagine, not more than a week ago I happened to mention
Lohengrin
to the Education Minister’s wife. She stared at me and said ‘
Lohengrin
? Oh, yes, the new review at the Folies-Bergère. I hear it’s a perfect scream!’ Well, I ask you! When people say things like that it makes your blood boil. I could have hit her. Because I have a bit of a temper of my own. What do you say, Monsieur,” she added, turning to me, “was I not right?”

“But still,” said Mme Cottard, “it’s forgivable to be a little off the mark when you’re asked a thing like that point blank, without any warning. I know something about it, because Mme Verdurin also has a habit of putting a pistol to your head.”

“Speaking of Mme Verdurin,” Mme Bontemps asked Mme Cottard, “do you know who will be there on Wednesday? Oh, I’ve just remembered that we’ve accepted an invitation for next Wednesday. You wouldn’t care to dine with us on Wednesday week? We could go on together to Mme Verdurin’s. I should never dare to go there by myself. I don’t know why it is, that great lady always terrifies me.”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” replied Mme Cottard, “that frightens you about Mme Verdurin: it’s her voice. But you see everyone can’t have such a charming voice as Mme Swann. Once you’ve found your tongue, as the Mistress says, the ice will soon be broken. For she’s a very easy person, really, to get on with. But I can quite understand what you feel; it’s never pleasant to find oneself for the first time in strange surroundings.”

“Won’t you dine with us, too?” said Mme Bontemps to Mme Swann. “After dinner we could all go to the Verdurins’ together, ‘do a Verdurin’; and even if it means that the Mistress will glare at me and never ask me to the house again, once we are there we’ll just sit by ourselves and have a quiet talk, I’m sure that’s what I should like best.” But this assertion can hardly have been quite truthful, for Mme Bontemps went on to ask: “Who do you think will be there on Wednesday week? What will be happening? There won’t be too big a crowd, I hope!”

“I certainly shan’t be there,” said Odette. “We’ll just put in a brief appearance on the last Wednesday of all. If you don’t mind waiting till then . . .” But Mme Bontemps did not appear to be tempted by the proposal.

Granted that the intellectual distinction of a salon and its elegance are generally in inverse rather than direct ratio, one must suppose, since Swann found Mme Bontemps agreeable, that any forfeiture of position once accepted has the consequence of making people less particular with regard to those among whom they have resigned themselves to move, less particular with regard to their intelligence as to everything else about them. And if this is true, men, like nations, must see their culture and even their language disappear with their independence. One of the effects of this indulgence is to aggravate the tendency people have after a certain age to derive pleasure from words that are a homage to their own turn of mind, to their weaknesses, and an encouragement to them to yield to them; that is the age at which a great artist prefers to the company of original minds that of pupils who have nothing in common with him save the letter of his doctrine, who listen to him and offer incense; at which a man or woman of distinction who lives exclusively for love will think the most intelligent person in a gathering the one who, however inferior, has shown by some remark that he can understand and approve an existence devoted to gallantry, and has thus pleasantly flattered the voluptuous instincts of the lover or mistress; it was the age, too, at which Swann, inasmuch as he had become the husband of Odette, enjoyed hearing Mme Bontemps say how silly it was to have nobody in one’s house but duchesses (concluding from that, contrary to what he would have done in the old days at the Verdurins’, that she was a good creature, extremely witty and not at all a snob) and telling her stories which made her “die laughing,” because she had not heard them before and moreover “saw the point” of them at once, since she enjoyed flattering and exchanging jokes.

“So the Doctor is not mad about flowers, like you?” Mme Swann asked Mme Cottard.

“Oh, well, you know, my husband is a sage; he practises moderation in all things. Wait, though, he does have one passion.”

Her eye aflame with malice, joy, curiosity, “And what is that, pray?” inquired Mme Bontemps.

Artlessly Mme Cottard replied: “Reading.” “Oh, that’s a very restful passion in a husband!” cried Mme Bontemps, suppressing a diabolical laugh.

“When the Doctor gets a book in his hands, you know!”

“Well, that needn’t alarm you much . . .”

“But it does, for his eyesight. I must go now and look after him, Odette, and I shall come back at the very first opportunity and knock at your door. Talking of eyesight, have you heard that the new house Mme Verdurin has just bought is to be lighted by electricity? I didn’t get that from my own little secret service, you know, but from quite a different source; it was the electrician himself, Mildé, who told me. You see, I quote my authorities! Even the bedrooms, he says, are to have electric lamps with shades which will filter the light. It’s obviously a charming luxury for those who can afford it. But it seems that our contemporaries must absolutely have the newest thing if it’s the only one of its kind in the world. Just fancy, the sister-in-law of a friend of mine has had the telephone installed in her house! She can order things from tradesmen without having to go out! I confess that I’ve indulged in the most bare-faced intrigues to get permission to go there one day, just to speak into the instrument. It’s very tempting, but rather in a friend’s house than at home. I don’t think I should like to have the telephone in my establishment. Once the first excitement is over, it must be a real headache. Now, Odette, I must be off; you’re not to keep Mme Bontemps any longer, she’s looking after me. I must absolutely tear myself away: a nice way you’re making me behave—I shall be getting home after my husband!”

And for myself also it was time to return home, before I had tasted those wintry delights of which the chrysanthemums had seemed to me to be the brilliant envelope. These pleasures had not appeared, and yet Mme Swann did not look as though she expected anything more. She allowed the servants to carry away the tea-things, as who should say “Time, please, gentlemen!” And finally she said to me: “Really, must you go? Well then,
good-bye
!” I felt that I might have stayed there without encountering those unknown pleasures, and that my sadness was not the only cause of my having to forgo them. Were they to be found, then, situated not upon that beaten track of hours which leads one always so rapidly to the moment of departure, but rather upon some unknown by-road along which I ought to have digressed? At least the object of my visit had been attained; Gilberte would know that I had come to her parents’ house when she was not at home, and that I had, as Mme Cottard had incessantly assured me, “made a complete conquest, first shot, of Mme Verdurin” (whom, she added, she had never seen “make so much” of anyone: “You and she must be soulmates”). She would know that I had spoken of her as was fitting, with affection, but that I had not that incapacity for living without our seeing one another which I believed to be at the root of the boredom that she had shown at our last meetings. I had told Mme Swann that I could not be with Gilberte any more. I had said this as though I had finally decided not to see her again. And the letter which I was going to send Gilberte would be framed on those lines. Only to myself, to fortify my courage, I proposed no more than a final, concentrated effort, lasting a few days only. I said to myself: “This is the last time that I shall refuse an invitation to meet her; I shall accept the next one.” To make our separation less difficult to realise, I did not picture it to myself as final. But I knew very well that it would be.

The first of January was exceptionally painful to me that winter. So, no doubt, is everything that marks a date and an anniversary, when we are unhappy. But if our unhappiness is due to the loss of someone dear to us, our suffering consists merely in an unusually vivid comparison of the present with the past. Added to this, in my case, was the unformulated hope that Gilberte, having wished to leave me to take the first steps towards a reconciliation, and discovering that I had not taken them, had been waiting only for the excuse of New Year’s Day to write to me, saying: “What is the matter? I’m mad about you, so come and have it out frankly, I can’t live without seeing you.” As the last days of the old year went by, such a letter began to seem probable. It was, perhaps, nothing of the sort, but to make us believe that such a thing is probable the desire, the need that we have for it suffices. The soldier is convinced that a certain interval of time, capable of being indefinitely prolonged, will be allowed him before the bullet finds him, the thief before he is caught, men in general before they have to die. That is the amulet which preserves people—and sometimes peoples—not from danger but from the fear of danger, in reality from the belief in danger, which in certain cases allows them to brave it without actually needing to be brave. It is confidence of this sort, and with as little foundation, that sustains the lover who is counting on a reconciliation, on a letter. For me to cease to expect a reconciliation, it would have sufficed that I should have ceased to wish for one. However indifferent to us we may know the beloved to be, we attribute to her a series of thoughts (though their sum-total be indifference), the intention to express those thoughts, a complication of her inner life in which one is the object of her antipathy, perhaps, but also of her constant attention. But to imagine what was going on in Gilberte’s mind I should have required simply the power to anticipate on that New Year’s Day what I should feel on the first day of any of the following years, when the attention or the silence or the affection or the coldness of Gilberte would pass almost unnoticed by me and I should not dream, should not even be able to dream, of seeking a solution to problems which would have ceased to perplex me. When we are in love, our love is too big a thing for us to be able altogether to contain it within ourselves. It radiates towards the loved one, finds there a surface which arrests it, forcing it to return to its starting-point, and it is this repercussion of our own feeling which we call the other’s feelings and which charms us more then than on its outward journey because we do not recognise it as having originated in ourselves.