Her exquisite conversation negligently decked itself out in the faded and perfectly charming elegance of an already old-fashioned scepticism. There had just been a heated discussion, and this woman, so absolute in life, convinced that there was only one way of dressing, would repeat to all and sundry, “But why can’t one say and think everything? I might be right, and so might you.
How dreadful and narrow-minded it is to have an opinion.” Her mind was not like her body, dressed in the latest fashion, and she found it easy to tease symbolists and enthusiasts. But her mind rather resembled those charming women who are beautiful and vivacious enough to look good even when they are wearing old clothes. In any case, it was perhaps a deliberate coquetry. Certain excessively crude opinions would have paralysed her mind in the same way that, she was convinced, certain colours would have clashed with her complexion.
To his handsome neighbour, Honoré had given a rapid sketch of these different figures, and one which was so good-natured that, despite the profound differences between them, they all seemed alike – the brilliant Mme de Torreno, the witty Duchess of D***, the beautiful Mme Lenoir. He had neglected the only feature they all shared, or rather the same collective madness, the same prevalent epidemic by which they were all affected: snobbery.
True, this snobbery assumed very different shapes in accordance with their very different natures, and there was a world of difference between the imaginative and poetic snobbery of Mme Lenoir and the all-conquering snobbery of Mme de Torreno, who was as avid as a civil servant desperate to reach the highest positions. And yet, that terrible woman was quite capable of rehumanizing herself. Her neighbour had just told her that he had been admiring her daughter in the Parc Monceau. Immediately she had broken her angry silence. She had felt for this obscure accountant a pure and friendly gratitude that she would have been incapable of feeling for a prince, and now they were chatting away like old friends.
Mme Fremer was presiding over the conversations with the visible satisfaction that sprang from the sentiment of the lofty mission she was performing. Used to introducing great writers to duchesses, she seemed, in her own eyes, a sort of omnipotent Minister of Foreign Affairs, who even in matters of protocol displayed great elevation of mind.
In the same way, a spectator digesting his dinner in the theatre can see below him, as he sits in judgement over them, artists, audience, the rules of dramatic art and genius. The conversation was in any case going with a real swing. They had reached that moment at dinner when gentlemen start touching the knees of the ladies next to them, or questioning them about their literary preferences: it depended on their different temperaments and education, and above all it depended on the ladies in question. One minute, a faux pas seemed inevitable.
Honoré’s handsome neighbour had tried with all the imprudence of youth to insinuate that in the work of Heredia* there were perhaps more ideas than people were prepared to admit. The guests, seeing their habitual opinions being thrown into question, started to look morose. But Mme Fremer immediately exclaimed, “On the contrary, they are merely admirable cameos, sumptuous enamels, flawless pieces of jewellery,” whereupon vivacity and satisfaction reappeared on every face.
A discussion of the anarchists was a more serious matter. But Mme Fremer, as if bowing resignedly before some fateful and natural law, said slowly, “What’s the use of all that? Rich and poor will be always with us.” And all those people, the poorest of whom had an income of at least a hundred thousand pounds, struck by the truth of this remark, and freed from their scruples, emptied with buoyant gaiety their last glass of champagne.
2
After Dinner
Honoré, aware that the mixture of different wines had left him feeling giddy, went off without saying goodbye, picked up his overcoat downstairs and started to walk down the Champs-Élysées. He was filled with great joy. The barriers of impossibility which separate our desires and our dreams from the realm of reality had been broken down, and his thoughts, filled with exaltation at their own momentum, circulated exuberantly through the domain of the unattainable.
The mysterious avenues that extend between one human being and another, and at the far end of which, every evening, there perhaps sets some unsuspected sun of joy or desolation, were starting to draw him down them.
Each person he thought of immediately struck him as irresistibly likeable, and he turned successively down each street in which he might hope to meet them in turn; and if his expectations had been realized, he would have gone up and greeted strangers or indifferent passers-by fearlessly, gently and with a quiver of anticipation. Now that a stage set positioned too close to him had fallen away, life stretched out into the distance ahead of him, in all the charm of its novelty and its mystery, in friendly landscapes that beckoned him on.
And the regret that it might be the mirage or the reality of a single evening filled him with despair; he would make sure he always dined and drank as well as he just had, so that he could again see things as lovely as these. He was simply pained at his inability to reach all the scenes dotted here and there in the infinite prospect that stretched away into the far distance.
Then he was struck by the sound of his voice, somewhat rough and forced, that had been repeating for a quarter of an hour, “Life is sad, how stupid!” (This last word was underlined by the abrupt gesture he made with his right arm, and he noticed the sudden jerk of his walking stick.) He told himself sadly that these mechanical words were an altogether banal translation of similar visions which, he thought, were perhaps not amenable to expression.
“Alas! No doubt the intensity of my pleasure or my regret is multiplied a hundredfold, but even so, its intellectual content remains the same. My happiness is edgy, personal, untranslatable to anyone else, and if I were to write now, my style would have the same qualities, the same defects – alas! – and the same commonplace tenor as usual.” But the physical well-being he was feeling prevented him from thinking about it at any greater length and immediately gave him that supreme consolation, oblivion.
He had come out onto the boulevards. People were going by, to whom he extended his warm feelings, certain that they would be reciprocated. He felt that he was their glorious role model; he opened his overcoat so that they could see the dazzling whiteness of his evening jacket, which so suited him, and the dark-red carnation in his buttonhole. Thus he offered himself to the admiration of the passers-by and the affection which he so voluptuously exchanged with them.
The end
