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The Captive (La prisonnière) Vol. 5
stop at this: “It seems, he has been in prison. Yes, yes, I have been told by people who knew all about it. I know, too, from a person who lives in his street, that you can’t imagine the ruffians that go to his house.” And as Brichot, who often went to the Baron’s, began to protest, Mme. Verdurin, growing animated, exclaimed: “But I can assure you! It is I who am telling you,” an expression with which she habitually sought to give weight to an assertion flung out more or less at random. “He will be found murdered in his bed one of these days, as those people always are. He may not go quite as far as that perhaps, because he is in the clutches of that Jupien whom he had the impudence to send to me, and who is an ex-convict, I know it, you yourself know it, yes, for certain. He has a hold on him because of some letters which are perfectly appalling, it seems. I know it from somebody who has seen them, and told me: ‘You would be sick on the spot if you saw them.’ That is how Jupien makes him toe the line and gets all the money he wants out of him. I would sooner die a thousand times over than live in a state of terror like Charlus. In any case, if Morel’s family decides to bring an action against him, I have no desire to be dragged in as an accomplice. If he goes on, it will be at his own risk, but I shall have done my duty. What is one to do? It’s no joke, I can tell you.”

And, agreeably warmed already by the thought of her husband’s impending conversation with the violinist, Mme. Verdurin said to me: “Ask Brichot whether I am not a courageous friend, and whether I am not capable of sacrificing myself to save my comrades.” (She was alluding to the circumstances in which she had, just in time, made him quarrel, first of all with his laundress, and then with Mme. de Cambremer, quarrels as a result of which Brichot had become almost completely blind, and [people said] had taken to morphia.) “An incomparable friend, far-sighted and valiant,” replied the Professor with an innocent emotion. “Mme. Verdurin prevented me from doing something extremely foolish,” Brichot told me when she had left us. “She never hesitates to operate without anaesthetics. She is an interventionist, as our friend Cottard says. I admit, however, that the thought that the poor Baron is still unconscious of the blow that is going to fall upon him distresses me deeply. He is quite mad about that boy. If Mme. Verdurin should prove successful, there is a man who is going to be very miserable. However, it is not certain that she will not fail. I am afraid that she may only succeed in creating a misunderstanding between them, which, in the end, without parting them, will only make them quarrel with her.” It was often thus with Mme. Verdurin and her faithful. But it was evident that in her the need to preserve their friendship was more and more dominated by the requirement that this friendship should never be challenged by that which they might feel for one another. Homosexuality did not disgust her so long as it did not tamper with orthodoxy, but like the Church she preferred any sacrifice rather than a concession of orthodoxy.

I was beginning to be afraid lest her irritation with myself might be due to her having heard that I had prevented Albertine from going to her that afternoon, and that she might presently set to work, if she had not already begun, upon the same task of separating her from me which her husband, in the case of Charlus, was now going to attempt with the musician. “Come along, get hold of Charlus, find some excuse, there’s no time to lose,” said Mme. Verdurin, “and whatever you do, don’t let him come back here until I send for you. Oh! What an evening,” Mme. Verdurin went on, revealing thus the true cause of her anger. “Performing a masterpiece in front of those wooden images. I don’t include the Queen of Naples, she is intelligent, she is a nice woman” (which meant: “She has been kind to me”). “But the others. Oh! It’s enough to drive anyone mad. What can you expect, I’m no longer a girl. When I was young, people told me that one must put up with boredom, I made an effort, but now, oh no, it’s too much for me, I am old enough to please myself, life is too short; bore myself, listen to idiots, smile, pretend to think them intelligent. No, I can’t do it. Get along, Brichot, there’s no time to lose.” “I am going, Madame, I am going,” said Brichot, as General Deltour moved away. But first of all the Professor took me aside for a moment: “Moral Duty,” he said, “is less clearly imperative than our Ethics teach us. Whatever the Theosophical cafés and the Kantian beer-houses may say, we are deplorably ignorant of the nature of Good. I myself who, without wishing to boast, have lectured to my pupils, in all innocence, upon the philosophy of the said Immanuel Kant, I can see no precise ruling for the case of social casuistry with which I am now confronted in that Critique of Practical Reason in which the great renegade of Protestantism platonised in the German manner for a Germany prehistorically sentimental and aulic, ringing all the changes of a Pomeranian mysticism. It is still the Symposium, but held this time at Kônigsberg, in the local style, indigestible and reeking of sauerkraut, and without any good-looking boys. It is obvious on the one hand that I cannot refuse our excellent hostess the small service that she asks of me, in a fully orthodox conformity with traditional morals. One ought to avoid, above all things, for there are few that involve one in more foolish speeches, letting oneself be lured by words. But after all, let us not hesitate to admit that if the mothers of families were entitled to vote, the Baron would run the risk of being lamentably blackballed for the Chair of Virtue.

It is unfortunately with the temperament of a rake that he pursues the vocation of a pedagogue; observe that I am not speaking evil of the Baron; that good man, who can carve a joint like nobody in the world, combines with a genius for anathema treasures of goodness. He can be most amusing as a superior sort of wag, whereas with a certain one of my colleagues, an Academician, if you please, I am bored, as Xenophon would say, at a hundred drachmae to the hour. But I am afraid that he is expending upon Morel rather more than a wholesome morality enjoins, and without knowing to what extent the young penitent shews himself docile or rebellious to the special exercises which his catechist imposes upon him by way of mortification, one need not be a learned clerk to be aware that we should be erring, as the other says, on the side of clemency with regard to this Rosicrucian who seems to have come down to us from Petronius, by way of Saint-Simon, if we granted him with our eyes shut, duly signed and sealed, permission to satanise. And yet, in keeping the man occupied while Mme. Verdurin, for the sinner’s good and indeed rightly tempted by such a cure of souls, proceeds—by speaking to the young fool without any concealment—to remove from him all that he loves, to deal him perhaps a fatal blow, it seems to me that I am leading him into what one might call a man-trap, and I recoil as though from a base action.” This said, he did not hesitate to commit it, but, taking him by the arm, began: “Come, Baron, let us go and smoke a cigarette, this young man has not yet seen all the marvels of the house.” I made the excuse that I was obliged to go home. “Just wait a moment,” said Brichot. “You remember, you are giving me a lift, and I have not forgotten your promise.” “Wouldn’t you like me, really, to make them bring out their plate, nothing could be simpler,” said M. de Charlus. “You promised me, remember, not a word about Morel’s decoration. I mean to give him the surprise of announcing it presently when people have begun to leave, although he says that it is of no importance to an artist, but that his uncle would like him to have it” (I blushed, for, I thought to myself, the Verdurins would know through my grandfather what Morel’s uncle was). “Then you wouldn’t like me to make them bring out the best pieces,” said M. de Charlus. “Of course, you know them already, you have seen them a dozen times at la Raspelière.” I dared not tell him that what might have interested me was not the mediocrity of even the most splendid plate in a middle-class household, but some specimen, were it only reproduced in a fine engraving, of Mme. Du Barry’s. I was far too gravely preoccupied—even if I had not been by this revelation as to Mlle. Vinteuil’s expected presence—always, in society, far too much distracted and agitated to fasten my attention upon objects that were more or less beautiful.

It could have been arrested only by the appeal of some reality that addressed itself to my

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stop at this: “It seems, he has been in prison. Yes, yes, I have been told by people who knew all about it. I know, too, from a person who