The air at this lofty point acquired a keenness and purity that intoxicated me. I adored the Verdurins; that they should have sent a carriage for us seemed to me a touching act of kindness. I should have liked to kiss the Princess. I told her that I had never seen anything so beautiful. She professed that she too loved this spot more than any other. But I could see that to her as to the Verdurins the thing that really mattered was not to gaze at the view like tourists, but to partake of good meals there, to entertain people whom they liked, to write letters, to read books, in short to live in these surroundings, passively allowing the beauty of the scene to soak into them rather than making it the object of their attention.
After the toll-house, where the carriage had stopped for a moment at such a height above the sea that, as from a mountain-top, the sight of the blue gulf beneath almost made one dizzy, I opened the window; the sound, distinctly caught, of each wave that broke in turn had something sublime in its softness and precision. Was it not like an index of measurement which, upsetting all our ordinary impressions, shews us that vertical distances may be coordinated with horizontal, in contradiction of the idea that our mind generally forms of them; and that, though they bring the sky nearer to us in this way, they are not great; that they are indeed less great for a sound which traverses them as did the sound of those little waves, the medium through which it has to pass being purer.
And in fact if one went back but a couple of yards below the toll-house, one could no longer distinguish that sound of waves, which six hundred feet of cliff had not robbed of its delicate, minute and soft precision. I said to myself that my grandmother would have listened to it with the delight that she felt in all manifestations of nature or art, in the simplicity of which one discerns grandeur. I was now at the highest pitch of exaltation, which raised everything round about me accordingly. It melted my heart that the Verdurins should have sent to meet us at the station.
I said as much to the Princess, who seemed to think that I was greatly exaggerating so simple an act of courtesy. I know that she admitted subsequently to Cottard that she found me very enthusiastic; he replied that I was too emotional, required sedatives and ought to take to knitting. I pointed out to the Princess every tree, every little house smothered in its mantle of roses, I made her admire everything, I would have liked to take her in my arms and press her to my heart. She told me that she could see that I had a gift for painting, that of course I must sketch, that she was surprised that nobody had told her about it. And she confessed that the country was indeed pic-I turesque.
We drove through, where it perched upon its height, the little I village of Englesqueville (Engleberti villa, Brichot informed us). “But are you quite sure that there will be a party this evening, in spite of Dechambre’s death, Princess?” he went on, without stopping to think that the presence at the station of the carriage in which we were sitting was in itself an answer to his question. “Yes,” said the Princess, “M. Verldulin insisted that it should not be put off, simply to keep his wife from thinking. And besides, after never failing for all these years to entertain on Wednesdays, such a change in her habits would have been bound to upset her.
Her nerves are velly bad just now. M. Verdurin was particularly pleased that you were coming to dine this evening, because he knew that it would be a great distraction for Mme. Verdurin,” said the Princess, forgetting her pretence of having never heard my name before. “I think that it will be as well not to say anything in front of Mme. Verdurin,” the Princess added. “Ah! I am glad you warned me,” Brichot artlessly replied. “I shall pass on your suggestion to Cottard.” The carriage stopped for a moment. It moved on again, but the sound that the wheels had been making in the village street had ceased. We had turned into the main avenue of la Raspelière where M. Verdurin stood waiting for us upon the steps. “I did well to put on a dinner-jacket,” he said, observing with pleasure that the faithful had put on theirs, “since I have such smart gentlemen in my party.”
And as I apologised for not having changed: “Why, that’s quite all right. We’re all friends here. I should be delighted to offer you one of my own dinner-jackets, but it wouldn’t fit you.” The handclasp throbbing with emotion which, as he entered the hall of la Raspelière, and by way of condolence at the death of the pianist, Brichot gave our host elicited no response from the latter. I told him how greatly I admired the scenery. “Ah! All the better, and you’ve seen nothing, we must take you round. Why not come and spend a week or two here, the air is excellent.” Brichot was afraid that his handclasp had not been understood. “Ah! Poor Dechambre!” he said, but in an undertone, in case Mme. Verdurin was within earshot.
“It is terrible,” replied M. Verdurin lightly. “So young,” Brichot pursued the point. Annoyed at being detained over these futilities, M. Verdurin replied in a hasty tone and with an embittered groan, not of grief but of irritated impatience: “Why yes, of course, but what’s to be done about it, it’s no use crying over spilt milk, talking about him won’t bring him back to life, will it?” And, his civility returning with his joviality:
“Come along, my good Brichot, get your things off quickly.
We have a bouillabaisse which mustn’t be kept waiting. But, in heaven’s name, don’t start talking about Dechambre to Madame Verdurin. You know that she always hides her feelings, but she is quite morbidly sensitive. I give you my word, when she heard that Dechambre was dead, she almost cried,” said M. Verdurin in a tone of profound irony. One might have concluded, from hearing him speak, that it implied a form of insanity to regret the death of a friend of thirty years’ standing, and on the other hand one gathered that the perpetual union of M. Verdurin and his wife did not preclude his constantly criticising her and her frequently irritating him. “If you mention it to her, she will go and make herself ill again.
It is deplorable, three weeks after her bronchitis. When that happens, it is I who have to be sick-nurse. You can understand that I have had more than enough of it. Grieve for Dechambre’s fate in your heart as much as you like. Think of him, but do not speak about him. I was very fond of Dechambre, but you cannot blame me for being fonder still of my wife. Here’s Cottard, now, you can ask him.” And indeed, he knew that a family doctor can do many little services, such as prescribing that one must not give way to grief.
The docile Cottard had said to the Mistress: “Upset yourself like that, and to-morrow you will give me a temperature of 102,” as he might have said to the cook: “To-morrow you will give me a riz de veau.” Medicine, when it fails to cure the sick, busies itself with changing the sense of verbs and pronouns.
M. Verdurin was glad to find that Saniette, notwithstanding the snubs that he had had to endure two days earlier, had not deserted the little nucleus. And indeed Mme. Verdurin and her husband had acquired, in their idleness, cruel instincts for which the great occasions, occurring too rarely, no longer sufficed. They had succeeded in effecting a breach between Odette and Swann, between Brichot and his mistress. They would try it again with some one else, that was understood. But the opportunity did not present itself every day. Whereas, thanks to his shuddering sensibility, his timorous and quickly aroused shyness, Saniette provided them with a whipping-block for every day in the year.
And so, for fear of his failing them, they took care always to invite him with friendly and persuasive words, such as the bigger boys at school, the old soldiers in a regiment, address to a recruit whom they are anxious to beguile so that they may get him into their clutches, with the sole object of flattering him for the moment and bullying him when he can no longer escape. “Whatever you do,” Brichot reminded Cottard, who had not heard what M. Verdurin was saying, “mum’s the word before Mme. Verdurin. Have no fear, O Cottard, you are dealing with a sage, as Theocritus says. Besides, M. Verdurin is right, what is the use of lamentations,” he went on, for, being capable of assimilating forms of speech and the ideas which they suggested to him, but having no finer perception, he had admired in M. Verdurin’s remarks the most courageous stoicism.
“All the same, it is a great talent that has gone from the world.” “What, are you still talking about Dechambre,”
