In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV (51 page)

With a gracious sidelong glance at Mme Verdurin, because he had heard her make a rendezvous with Morel for the day after next and was afraid that she might not invite him also, “I should say,” said M. de Charlus, “that Maecenas was more or less the Verdurin of antiquity.”

Mme Verdurin could not altogether suppress a smile of self-satisfaction. She went over to Morel. “He’s nice, your father’s friend,” she said to him. “One can see that he’s an educated man, and well bred. He will get on well in our little nucleus. Where does he live in Paris?”

Morel preserved a haughty silence and merely proposed a game of cards. Mme Verdurin demanded a little violin music first. To the general astonishment, M. de Charlus, who never spoke of his own considerable gifts, accompanied, in the purest style, the closing passage (uneasy, tormented, Schumannesque, but, for all that, earlier than Franck’s sonata) of the sonata for piano and violin by Fauré. I felt that he would provide Morel, marvellously endowed as to tone and virtuosity, with just those qualities that he lacked, culture and style. But I thought with curiosity of this combination in a single person of a physical blemish and a spiritual gift. M. de Charlus was not very different from his brother, the Duc de Guermantes. Indeed, a moment ago (though this was rare), he had spoken as bad a French as his brother. He having reproached me (doubtless in order that I might speak in glowing terms of Morel to Mme Verdurin) with never coming to see him, and I having pleaded discretion, he had replied: “But, since it is I who ask, there’s no one but me who could possibly take huff.” This might have been said by the Duc de Guermantes. M. de Charlus was only a Guermantes when all was said. But it had sufficed that nature should have upset the balance of his nervous system enough to make him prefer, to the woman that his brother the Duke would have chosen, one of Virgil’s shepherds or Plato’s disciples, and at once qualities unknown to the Duc de Guermantes and often combined with this lack of equilibrium had made M. de Charlus an exquisite pianist, an amateur painter who was not devoid of taste, and an eloquent talker. Who would ever have detected that the rapid, nervous, charming style with which M, de Charlus played the Schumannesque passage of Fauré’s sonata had its equivalent—one dare not say its cause—in elements entirely physical, in the Baron’s nervous weaknesses? We shall explain later on what we mean by nervous weaknesses, and why it is that a Greek of the time of Socrates, a Roman of the time of Augustus, might be what we know them to have been and yet remain absolutely normal, not men-women such as we see around us today. Just as he had real artistic aptitudes which had never come to fruition, so M. de Charlus, far more than the Duke, had loved their mother and loved his own wife, and indeed, years afterwards, if anyone spoke of them to him, would shed tears, but superficial tears, like the perspiration of an over-stout man, whose forehead will glisten with sweat at the slightest exertion. With this difference, that to the latter one says: “How hot you are,” whereas one pretends not to notice other people’s tears. One, that is to say, society; for simple people are as distressed by the sight of tears as if a sob were more serious than a haemorrhage. Thanks to the habit of lying, his sorrow after the death of his wife did not debar M. de Charlus from a life which was not in conformity with it. Indeed later on, he was ignominious enough to let it be known that, during the funeral ceremony, he had found an opportunity of asking the acolyte for his name and address. And it may have been true.

When the piece came to an end, I ventured to ask for some Franck, which appeared to cause Mme de Cambremer such acute pain that I did not insist. “You can’t admire that sort of thing,” she said to me. Instead she asked for Debussy’s
Fêtes
, which made her exclaim: “Ah! how sublime!” from the first note. But Morel discovered that he could remember only the opening bars, and in a spirit of mischief, without any intention to deceive, began a March by Meyerbeer. Unfortunately, as he left little interval and made no announcement, everybody supposed that he was still playing Debussy, and continued to exclaim “Sublime!” Morel, by revealing that the composer was that not of
Pelléas
but of
Robert le Diable
, created a certain chill. Mme de Cambremer had scarcely time to feel it for herself, for she had just discovered a volume of Scarlatti and had flung herself upon it with an hysterical shriek. “Oh! play this, look, this piece, it’s divine,” she cried. And yet, of this composer long despised but recently promoted to the highest honours, what she had selected in her feverish impatience was one of those infernal pieces which have so often kept us from sleeping, while a merciless pupil repeats them ad infinitum on the next floor. But Morel had had enough music, and as he insisted upon cards, M. de Charlus, to be able to join in, proposed a game of whist.

“He was telling the Boss just now that he’s a prince,” said Ski to Mme Verdurin, “but it’s not true, they’re quite a humble family of architects.”

“I want to know what it was you were saying about Maecenas. It interests me, don’t you know!” Mme Verdurin repeated to Brichot, with an affability that carried him off his feet. And so, in order to shine in the Mistress’s eyes, and possibly in mine: “Why, to tell you the truth, Madame, Maecenas interests me chiefly because he is the earliest apostle of note of that oriental god who numbers more followers in France today than Brahma, than Christ himself, the all-powerful god, Dun Gifa Hoot.” Mme Verdurin was no longer content, on these occasions, with burying her head in her hands. She would descend with the suddenness of the insects called ephemerids upon Princess Sherbatoff; were the latter within reach the Mistress would cling to her shoulder, dig her nails into it, and hide her face against it for a few moments like a child playing hide and seek. Concealed by this protecting screen, she was understood to be laughing until she cried, but could as well have been thinking of nothing at all as the people who, while saying a longish prayer, take the wise precaution of burying their faces in their hands. Mme Verdurin imitated them when she listened to Beethoven quartets, in order at the same time to show that she regarded them as a prayer and not to let it be seen that she was asleep. “I speak quite seriously, Madame,” said Brichot. “Too numerous, I consider, today are the persons who spend their time gazing at their navels as though they were the hub of the universe. As a matter of doctrine, I have no objection to offer to any Nirvana which will dissolve us in the great Whole (which, like Munich and Oxford, is considerably nearer to Paris than Asnières or Bois-Colombes), but it is unworthy either of a true Frenchman, or of a true European even, when the Japanese are possibly at the gates of our Byzantium, that socialised anti-militarists should be gravely discussing the cardinal virtues of free verse.” Mme Verdurin felt that she might dispense with the Princess’s mangled shoulder, and allowed her face to become once more visible, not without pretending to wipe her eyes and gasping two or three times for breath. But Brichot was determined that I should have my share in the entertainment, and having learned, from those oral examinations which he conducted like nobody else, that the best way to flatter the young is to lecture them, to make them feel important, to make them regard you as a reactionary: “I have no wish to blaspheme against the Gods of Youth,” he said, with that furtive glance at myself which an orator turns upon a member of his audience when he mentions him by name, “I have no wish to be damned as a heretic and renegade in the Mallarméan chapel in which our new friend, like all the young men of his age, must have served the esoteric mass, at least as an acolyte, and have shown himself deliquescent or Rosicrucian. But really, we have seen more than enough of these intellectuals worshipping art with a capital A, who, when they can no longer intoxicate themselves upon Zola, inject themselves with Verlaine. Having become etheromaniacs out of Baudelairean devotion, they would no longer be capable of the virile effort which the country may one day or another demand of them, anaesthetised as they are by the great literary neurosis in the heated, enervating atmosphere, heavy with unwholesome vapours, of a symbolism of the opium den.”

Incapable of feigning the slightest admiration for Brichot’s inept and motley tirade, I turned to Ski and assured him that he was entirely mistaken as to the family to which M. de Charlus belonged; he replied that he was certain of his facts, and added that I myself had said that his real name was Gandin, Le Gandin. “I told you,” was my answer, “that Mme de Cambremer was the sister of an engineer called M. Legrandin. I never said a word to you about M. de Charlus. There is about as much connexion between him and Mme de Cambremer as between the Great Condé and Racine.”

“Ah! I thought there was,” said Ski lightly, with no more apology for his mistake than he had made a few hours earlier for the mistake that had nearly made his party miss the train.

“Do you intend to remain long on this coast?” Mme Verdurin asked M. de Charlus, in whom she foresaw an addition to the faithful and trembled lest he should be returning too soon to Paris.

“Goodness me, one never knows,” replied M. de Charlus in a nasal drawl. “I should like to stay until the end of September.”

“You are quite right,” said Mme Verdurin; “that’s when we get splendid storms at sea.”

“To tell you the truth, that is not what would influence me. I have for some time past unduly neglected the Archangel Michael, my patron saint, and I should like to make amends to him by staying for his feast, on the 29th of September, at the Abbey on the Mount.”

“You take an interest in all that sort of thing?” asked Mme Verdurin, who might perhaps have succeeded in hushing the voice of her outraged anti-clericalism had she not been afraid that so long an expedition might make the violinist and the Baron “defect” for forty-eight hours.

“You are perhaps afflicted with intermittent deafness,” M. de Charlus replied insolently. “I have told you that Saint Michael is one of my glorious patrons.” Then, smiling with a benevolent ecstasy, his eyes gazing into the distance, his voice reinforced by an exaltation which seemed now to be not merely aesthetic but religious: “It is so beautiful at the Offertory when Michael stands erect by the altar, in a white robe, swinging a golden censer heaped so high with perfumes that the fragrance of them mounts up to God.”

“We might go there in a party,” suggested Mme Verdurin, notwithstanding her horror of the clergy.

“At that moment, when the Offertory begins,” went on M. de Charlus who, for other reasons but in the same manner as good speakers in Parliament, never replied to an interruption and would pretend not to have heard it, “it would be wonderful to see our young friend Palestrinising and even performing an aria by Bach. The worthy Abbot, too, would be wild with joy, and it is the greatest homage, at least the greatest public homage, that I can pay to my patron saint. What an edification for the faithful! We must mention it presently to the young Angelico of music, himself a warrior like Saint Michael.”

Saniette, summoned to make a fourth, declared that he did not know how to play whist. And Cottard, seeing that there was not much time left before the train, embarked at once on a game of écarté with Morel. M. Verdurin was furious, and bore down with a terrible expression upon Saniette: “Is there nothing you know how to play?” he shouted, furious at being deprived of the opportunity for a game of whist, and delighted to have found one for insulting the ex-archivist. The latter, terror-stricken, did his best to look clever: “Yes, I can play the piano,” he said. Cottard and Morel were seated face to face. “Your deal,” said Cottard. “Suppose we go nearer to the card-table,” M. de Charlus, worried by the sight of Morel in Cottard’s company, suggested to M. de Cambremer. “It’s quite as interesting as those questions of etiquette which in these days have ceased to count for very much. The only kings that we have left, in France at least, are the kings in packs of cards, who seem to me to be positively swarming in the hand of our young virtuoso,” he added a moment later, from an admiration for Morel which extended to his way of playing cards, to flatter him also, and finally to account for his suddenly leaning over the young violinist’s shoulder. “I-ee trrump,” said Cottard, putting on a vile foreign accent; his children would burst out laughing, like his students and the house surgeon, whenever the Master, even by the bedside of a serious case, uttered one of his hackneyed witticisms with the impassive expression of an epileptic. “I don’t know what to play,” said Morel, seeking advice from M. de Cambremer. “Just as you please, you’re bound to lose, whatever you play, it’s all the same (
c’est égal
).” “Galli-Marié?” said the Doctor with a benign and knowing glance at M. de Cambremer. “She was what we call a true diva, she was a dream, a Carmen such as we shall never see again. She was wedded to the part. I used to enjoy too listening to Ingalli-Marié.”

The Marquis rose, and with that contemptuous vulgarity of well-born people who do not realise that they are insulting their host by appearing uncertain whether they ought to associate with his guests, and plead English habits as an excuse for a disdainful expression, asked: “Who is that gentleman playing cards? What does he do for a living? What does he
sell
? I rather like to know who I’m with, so as not to make friends with any Tom, Dick or Harry. But I didn’t catch his name when you did me the honour of introducing me to him.” If M. Verdurin, on the strength of these last words, had indeed introduced M. de Cambremer
to
his fellow-guests, the other would have been greatly annoyed. But, knowing that it was the opposite procedure that had been observed, he thought it gracious to assume a genial and modest air, without risk to himself. The pride that M. Verdurin took in his intimacy with Cottard had gone on increasing ever since the Doctor had become an eminent professor. But it no longer found expression in the same ingenuous form as of old. Then, when Cottard was scarcely known to the public, if you spoke to M. Verdurin of his wife’s facial neuralgia, “There is nothing to be done,” he would say, with the naïve complacency of people who assume that anyone whom they know must be famous, and that everybody knows the name of their daughter’s singing-teacher. “If she had an ordinary doctor, one might look for a second opinion, but when that doctor is called Cottard” (a name which he pronounced as though it were Bouchard or Charcot) “one simply has to bow to the inevitable.” Adopting a reverse procedure, knowing that M. de Cambremer must certainly have heard of the famous Professor Cottard, M. Verdurin assumed an artless air. “He’s our family doctor, a worthy soul whom we adore and who would bend over backwards for our sakes; he’s not a doctor, he’s a friend. I don’t suppose you have ever heard of him or that his name would convey anything to you, but in any case to us it’s the name of a very good man, of a very dear friend, Cottard.” This name, murmured in a modest tone, surprised M. de Cambremer who supposed that his host was referring to someone else. “Cottard? You don’t mean Professor Cottard?” At that moment one heard the voice of the said Professor who, at an awkward point in the game, was saying as he looked at his cards: “This is where Greek meets Greek.” “Why, yes, to be sure, he is a professor,” said M. Verdurin. “What! Professor Cottard! You’re sure you’re not mistaken! You’re certain it’s the same man! The one who lives in the Rue du Bac!” “Yes, his address is 43, Rue du Bac. You know him?” “But everybody knows Professor Cottard. He’s a leading light. It’s as though you asked me if I knew Bouffe de Saint-Blaise or Courtois-Suffit. I could see when I heard him speak that he was not an ordinary person. That’s why I took the liberty of asking you.” “Well then, what shall I play, trumps?” asked Cottard. Then abruptly, with a vulgarity which would have been irritating even in heroic circumstances, as when a soldier uses a coarse expression to convey his contempt for death, but became doubly stupid in the safe pastime of a game of cards, Cottard, deciding to play a trump, assumed a sombre, death-defying air and flung down his card as though it were his life, with the exclamation: “There it is, and be damned to it!” It was not the right card to play, but he had a consolation. In a deep armchair in the middle of the room, Mme Cottard, yielding to the effect, which she always found irresistible, of a good dinner, had succumbed after vain efforts to the vast if gentle slumbers that were overpowering her. In vain did she sit up now and then, and smile, either in self-mockery or from fear of leaving unanswered some polite remark that might have been addressed to her, she sank back, in spite of herself, into the clutches of the implacable and delicious malady. More than the noise, what awakened her thus, for an instant only, was the glance (which, in her wifely affection, she could see even when her eyes were shut, and anticipated, for the same scene occurred every evening and haunted her dreams like the thought of the hour at which one will have to rise), the glance with which the Professor drew the attention of those present to his wife’s slumbers. To begin with, he merely looked at her and smiled, for if as a doctor he disapproved of this habit of falling asleep after dinner (or at least gave this scientific reason for getting angry later on, though it is not certain whether it was a determining reason, so many and diverse were the views that he held on the subject), as an all-powerful and teasing husband he was delighted to be able to make fun of his wife, to half-waken her only at first, so that she might fall asleep again and he have the pleasure of waking her anew.