she found too submissive the Duke’s mistresses were not exempt. Presently the Duchess grew tired of them. Simultaneously, at this moment, the Duke’s intimacy with Mme. d’Arpajon was drawing to an end. Another mistress dawned on the horizon.
No doubt the love which M. de Guermantes had had for each of them in succession would begin one day to make itself felt afresh; in the first place, this love in dying bequeathed them, like beautiful marbles — marbles beautiful to the Duke, become thus in part an artist, because he had loved them and was sensitive now to lines which he would not have appreciated without love — which brought into juxtaposition in the Duchess’s drawing-room their forms long inimical, devoured by jealousies and quarrels, and finally reconciled in the peace of friendship; besides, this friendship itself was an effect of the love which had made M. de Guermantes observe in those who were his mistresses virtues which exist in every human being but are perceptible only to the sensual eye, so much so that the ex-mistrêss, become ‘the best of comrades’ who would do anything in the world for one, is as recognised a type as the doctor or father who is not a doctor or a father but a friend. But during a period of transition the woman whom M. de Guermantes was preparing to abandon bewailed her lot, made scenes, shewed herself exacting, appeared indiscreet, became a nuisance. The Duke began to take a dislike to her. Then Mme. de Guermantes had an opportunity to bring into prominence the real or imagined defects of a person who annoyed her. Known as a kind woman, Mme. de Guermantes received the telephone messages, the confidences, the tears of the abandoned mistress and made no complaint. She laughed at them, first with her husband, then with a few chosen friends. And imagining that this pity which she shewed for the poor wretch gave her the right to make fun of her, even to her face, whatever the lady might say, provided it could be included among the attributes of the character for absurdity which the puke and Duchess had recently fabricated for her, Mme. de Guermantes had no hesitation in exchanging with her husband a glance of ironical connivance.
Meanwhile, as she sat down to table, the Princesse de Parme remembered that she had thought of inviting a certain other Princess to the Opera, and, wishing to be assured that this would not in any way offend Mme. de Guermantes, was preparing to sound her. At this moment there entered M. de Grouchy, whose train, owing to some block on the line, had been held up for an hour. He made what excuses he could. His wife, had she been a Courvoisier, would have died of shame. But Mme. de Grouchy was not a Guermantes for nothing. As her husband was apologising for being late:
“I see,” she broke in, “that even in little things arriving late is a tradition in your family.”
“Sit down, Grouchy, and don’t let them pull your leg,” said the Duke.
“I hope I move with the times, still I must admit that the Battle of Waterloo had its points, since it brought about the Restoration of the Bourbons, and better still in a way which made them unpopular. But you seem to be a regular Nimrod!”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I have had quite a good bag. I shall take the liberty of sending the Duchess six brace of pheasants to-morrow.”
An idea seemed to flicker in the eyes of Mme. de Guermantes. She insisted that M. de Grouchy must not give himself the trouble of sending the pheasants. And making a sign to the betrothed footman with whom I had exchanged a few words on my way from the Elstir room:
“Poullein,” she told him, “you will go to-morrow and fetch M. le Comte’s pheasants and bring them straight back — you won’t mind, will you, Grouchy, if I make a few little presents. Basin and I can’t eat a whole dozen by ourselves.”
“But the day after to-morrow will be soon enough,” said M. de Grouchy.
“No, to-morrow suits me better,” the Duchess insisted.
Poullein had turned pale; his appointment with his sweetheart would have to be missed. This was quite enough for the diversion of the Duchess, who liked to appear to be taking a human interest in everyone. “I know it’s your day out,” she went on to Poullein, “all you’ve got to do is to change with Georges; he can take to-morrow off and stay in the day after.”
But the day after, Poullein’s sweetheart would not be free. A holiday then was of no account to him. As soon as he was out of the room, everyone complimented the Duchess on the interest she took in her servants. “But I only behave towards them as I like people to behave to me.” “That’s just it. They can say they’ve found a good place with you.” “Oh, nothing so very wonderful. But I think they all like me. That one is a little annoying because he’s in love. He thinks it incumbent on him to go about with a long face.”
At this point Poullein reappeared. “You’re quite right,” said M. de Grouchy, “he doesn’t look much like smiling. With those fellows one has to be good but not too good.” “I admit I’m not a very dreadful mistress. He’ll have nothing to do all day but call for your pheasants, sit in the house doing nothing and eat his share of them.” “There are plenty of people who would be glad to be in his place,” said M. de Grouchy, for envy makes men blind.
“Oriane,” began the Princesse de Parme, “I had a visit the other day from your cousin Heudicourt; of course she’s a highly intelligent woman — she’s a Guermantes, one can say no more, but they tell me she has a spitel ful tongue.” The Duke fastened on his wife a slow gaze of deliberate stupefaction. Mme. de Guermantes began to smile. Gradually the Princess became aware of their pantomime. “But… do you mean to say you don’t agree with me?” she stammered with growing uneasiness. “Really Ma’am, it’s too good of you to pay any attention to Basin’s faces. Now’ Basin, you’re not to hint nasty things about our cousins.” “He thinks her too wicked?” inquired the Princess briskly. “Oh, dear me, no!” replied the Duchess. “I don’t know who told your Highness that she was spiteful. On the contrary, she’s an excellent creature who never said any harm of anyone, or did any harm to any one.” “Ah!” sighed Mme. de Parme, greatly relieved. “I must say I never noticed anything myself. But I know it’s often difficult not to be a little spiteful when one is so full of wit…” “Ah! Now that is a quality of which she has even less.” “Less wit?” asked the stupefied Princess. “Come now, Oriane,” broke in the Duke in a plaintive tone, casting to right and left of him a glance of amusement, “you heard the Princess tell you that she was a superior woman.” “But isn’t she?” “Superior in chest measurement, at any rate.” “Don’t listen to him, Ma’am, he’s not sincere; she’s as stupid as a (h’m) goose,” came in a loud and rasping voice from Mme. de Guermantes, who, a great deal more ‘old French’ even than the Duke when he was not trying, did often deliberately seek to be, but in a manner the opposite of the lace-neckcloth, deliquescent style of her husband and in reality far more subtle, by a sort of almost peasant pronunciation which had a harsh and delicious flavour of the soil. “But she’s the best woman in the world. Besides, I don’t really know that one can call it stupidity when it’s carried to such a point as that. I don’t believe I ever met anyone quite like her; she’s a case for a specialist, there’s something pathological about her, she’s a sort of ‘innocent’ or ‘cretin’ or an ‘arrested development,’ like the people you see in melodramas, or in L’Arlésienne. I always ask myself, when she comes to see me, whether the moment may not have arrived at which her intelligence is going to dawn, which makes me a little nervous always.” The Princess was lost in admiration of these utterances but remained stupefied by the preceding verdict. “She repeated to me — and so did Mme. d’Epinay — what you said about ‘Teaser Augustus.’ It’s delicious,” she put in.
M. de Guermantes explained the joke to me. I wanted to tell him that his brother, who pretended not to know me, was expecting me that same evening at eleven o’clock. But I had not asked Robert whether I might mention this engagement, and as the fact that M. de Charlus had practically fixed it with me himself directly contradicted what he had told the Duchess I judged it more tactful to say nothing. “‘Teaser Augustus’ was not bad,” said M. de Guermantes, “but Mme. d’Heudicourt probably did not tell you a far better thing that Oriane said to her the other day in reply to an invitation to luncheon.” “No, indeed! Do tell me!” “Now Basin, you keep quiet; in the first place, it was a stupid remark, and it will make the Princess think me inferior even to my fool of a cousin. Though I don’t know why I should call her my cousin. She’s one of Basin’s cousins. Still, I believe she is related to me in some sort of way.” “Oh!” cried the