One of our Conscript Fathers is called M. de Saulces de Freycinet, which means, if I be not mistaken, a spot planted with willows and ashes, salix et fraxinetum; his nephew M. de Selves combines more trees still, since he is named de Selves, de sylvis.” Saniette was delighted to see the conversation take so animated a turn. He could, since Brichot was talking all the time, preserve a silence which would save him from being the butt of M. and Mme. Verdurin’s wit.
And growing even more sensitive in his joy at being set free, he had been touched when he heard M. Verdurin, notwithstanding the formality of so grand a dinner-party, tell the butler to put a decanter of water in front of M. Saniette who never drank anything else. (The generals responsible for the death of most soldiers insist upon their being well fed.) Moreover, Mme. Verdurin had actually smiled once at Saniette.
Decidedly, they were kind people. He was not going to be tortured any more. At this moment the meal was interrupted by one of the party whom I have forgotten to mention, an eminent Norwegian philosopher who spoke French very well but very slowly, for the twofold reason that, in the first place, having learned the language only recently and not wishing to make mistakes (he did, nevertheless, make some), he referred each word to a sort of mental dictionary, and secondly, being a metaphysician, he always thought of what he intended to say while he was saying it, which, even in a Frenchman, causes slowness of utterance.
He was, otherwise, a charming person, although similar in appearance to many other people, save in one respect. This man so slow in his diction (there was an interval of silence after every word) acquired a startling rapidity in escaping from the room as soon as he had said good-bye. His haste made one suppose, the first time one saw him, that he was suffering from colic or some even more urgent need.
“My dear—colleague,” he said to Brichot, after deliberating in his mind whether colleague was the correct term, “I have a sort of—desire to know whether there are other trees in the—nomenclature of your beautiful French—Latin—Norman tongue. Madame” (lie meant Madame Verdurin, although he dared not look at her) “has told me that you know everything. Is not this precisely the moment?” “No, it is the moment for eating,” interrupted Mme. Verdurin, who saw the dinner becoming interminable. “Very well,” the Scandinavian replied, bowing his head over his plate with a resigned and sorrowful smile.
“But I must point out to Madame that if I have permitted myself this questionnaire—pardon me, this questation—it is because I have to return to-morrow to Paris to dine at the Tour d’Argent or at the Hôtel Meurice, My French—brother—M. Boutroux is to address us there about certain seances of spiritualism—pardon me, certain spirituous evocations which he has controlled.” “The Tour d’Argent is not nearly as good as they make out,” said Mme. Verdurin sourly. “In fact, I have had some disgusting dinners there.” “But am I mistaken, is not the food that one consumes at Madame’s table an example of the finest French cookery?” “Well, it is not positively bad,” replied Mme. Verdurin, sweetening. “And if you come next Wednesday, it will be better.” “But I am leaving on Monday for Algiers, and from there I am going to the Cape. And when I am at the Cape of Good Hope, I shall no longer be able to meet my illustrious colleague—pardon me, I shall no longer be able to meet my brother.”
And he set to work obediently, after offering these retrospective apologies, to devour his food at a headlong pace. But Brichot was only too delighted to be able to furnish other vegetable etymologies, and replied, so greatly interesting the Norwegian that he again stopped eating, but with a sign to the servants that they might remove his plate and help him to the next course. “One of the Forty,” said Brichot, “is named Houssaye, or a place planted with hollies; in the name of a brilliant diplomat, d’Ormesson, you will find the elm, the ulmus beloved of Virgil, which has given its name to the town of Ulm; in the names of his colleagues, M. de la Boulaye, the birch (bouleau), M. d’Aunay, the alder (aune), M. de Buissière, the box (buis), M. Albaret, the sapwood (aubier)” (I made a mental note that I must tell this to Céleste), “M. de Cholet, the cabbage (chou), and the apple-tree (pommier) in the name of M. de la Pommeraye, whose lectures we used to attend, do you remember, Saniette, in the days when the worthy Porel had been sent to the farthest ends of the earth, as Proconsul in Odeonia?” “You said that Cholet was derived from chou,” I remarked to Brichot.
“Am I to suppose that the name of a station I passed before reaching Doncières, Saint-Frichoux, comes from chou also?” “No, Saint-Frichoux is Sanctus Fruc-tuosus, as Sanctus Ferreolus gave rise to Saint-Fargeau, but that is not Norman in the least.” “He knows too much, he’s boring us,” the Princess muttered softly. “There are so many other names that interest me, but I can’t ask you everything at once.” And, turning to Cottard, “Is Madame Putbus here?” I asked him. On hearing Brichot utter the name of Saniette, M. Verdurin cast at his wife and at Cottard an ironical glance which confounded their timid guest. “No, thank heaven,” replied Mme. Verdurin, who had overheard my question, “I have managed to turn her thoughts in the direction of Venice, we are rid of her for this year.” “I shall myself be entitled presently to two trees,” said M. de Charlus, “for I have more or less taken a little house between Saint-Martin-du-Chene and Saint-Pierre-des-Ifs.” “But that is quite close to here, I hope that you will come over often with Charlie Morel.
You have only to come to an arrangement with our little group about the trains, you are only a step from Doncières,” said Mme. Verdurin, who hated people’s not coming by the same train and not arriving at the hours when she sent carriages to meet them. She knew how stiff the climb was to la Raspelière, even if you took the zigzag path, behind Féterne, which was half-an-hour longer; she was afraid that those of her guests who kept to themselves might not find carriages to take them, or even, having in reality stayed away, might plead the excuse that they had not found a carriage at Douville-Féterne, and had not felt strong enough to make so stiff a climb on foot. To this invitation M. de Charlus responded with a silent bow. “He’s not the sort of person you can talk to any day of the week, he seems a tough customer,” the doctor whispered to Ski, for having remained quite simple, notwithstanding a surface-dressing of pride, he made no attempt to conceal the fact that Charlus had snubbed him.
“He is doubtless unaware that at all the watering-places, and even in Paris in the wards, the physicians, who naturally regard me as their ‘chief,’ make it a point of honour to introduce me to all the noblemen present, not that they need to be asked twice. It makes my stay at the spas quite enjoyable,” he added carelessly. “Indeed at Doncières the medical officer of the regiment, who is the doctor who attends the Colonel, invited me to luncheon to meet him, saying that I was fully entitled to dine with the General. And that General is a Monsieur de something. I don’t know whether his title-deeds are more or less ancient than those of this Baron.”
“Don’t you worry about him, his is a very humble coronet,” replied Ski in an undertone, and added some vague statement including a word of which I caught only the last syllable, -ast, being engaged in listening to what Brichot was saying to M. de Charlus. “No, as for that, I am sorry to say, you have probably one tree only, for if Saint-Martin-du-Chêne is obviously Sanctus Martinus juxta quercum, on the other hand, the word if may be simply the root ave, eve, which means moist, as in Aveyron, Lodève, Yvette, and which you see survive in our kitchen-sinks (éviers).
It is the word eau which in Breton is represented by ster, Ster-maria, Sterlaer, Sterbouest, Ster-en-Dreuchen.” I heard no more, for whatever the pleasure I might feel on hearing again the name Stermaria, I could not help listening to Cottard, next to whom I was seated, as he murmured to Ski: “Indeed! I was not aware of it. So he is a gentleman who has learned to look behind! He is one of the happy band, is he? He hasn’t got rings of fat round his eyes, all the same. I shall have to keep my feet well under me, or he may start squeezing them. But I’m not at all surprised. I am used to seeing noblemen in the bath, in their birthday suits, they are all more or less degenerates. I don’t talk to them, because after all I am in an official position and it might do me harm. But they know quite well who I am.”
Saniette, whom Brichot’s appeal had frightened, was beginning to breathe again, like a man who is afraid of the storm when he finds that the lightning has not been followed by any sound of thunder, when he heard M. Verdurin interrogate him, fastening upon him a stare which did not spare the wretch until he had
