“Gad, it’s infernally dull that Fille de Roland,” said M. de Guermantes, with the satisfaction which he derived from the sense of his own superiority to a work which had bored him so, perhaps also from the suave mari magno feeling one has in the middle of a good dinner, when one recalls so terrible an evening in the past. “Still, there were some quite good lines in it, and a patriotic sentiment.”
I let it be understood that I had no admiration for M. de Bornier. “Indeed! You have some fault to find with him?” the Duke asked with a note of curiosity, for he always imagined when anyone spoke ill of a man that it must be on account of a personal resentment, just as to speak well of a woman marked the beginning of a love-affair. “I see you’ve got your knife into him. What did he do to you? You must tell us. Why yes, there must be some skeleton in the cupboard or you wouldn’t run him down. It’s long-winded, the Fille de Roland, but it’s quite strong in parts.” “Strong is just the right word for an author who smelt like that,” Mme. de Guermantes broke in sarcastically. “If this poor boy ever found himself face to face with him, I can quite understand that he carried away an impression in his nostrils!” “I must confess, though, to Ma’am,” the Duke went on, addressing the Princesse de Parme, “that quite apart from the Fille de Roland, in literature and even in music I am 251terribly old-fashioned; no old nightingale can be too stale for my taste. You won’t believe me, perhaps, but in the evenings, if my wife sits down to the piano, I find myself calling for some old tune by Auber or Boïeldieu, or even Beethoven! That’s the sort of thing that appeals to me. As for Wagner, he sends me to sleep at once.” “You are wrong there,” said Mme. de Guermantes, “in spite of his insufferable long-windedness, Wagner was a genius. Lohengrin is a masterpiece. Even in Tristan there are some amusing passages scattered about. And the Chorus of Spinners in the Flying Dutchman is a perfect marvel.” “A’n’t I right, Babal,” said M. de Guermantes, turning to M. de Bréauté, “what we like is:
Les rendez-vous de noble compagnie
Se donnent tous en ce charmant séjour.
It’s delicious. And Fra Diavolo, and the Magic Flute, and the Chalet, and the Marriage of Figaro, and the Diamants de la Couronne—there’s music for you! It’s the same thing in literature. For instance, I adore Balzac, the Bal de Sceaux, the Mohicans de Paris.” “Oh, my dear, if you are going to begin about Balzac, we shall never hear the end of it; do wait, keep it for some evening when Mémé’s here. He’s even better, he knows it all by heart.” Irritated by his wife’s interruption, the Duke held her for some seconds under the fire of a menacing silence. And his huntsman’s eyes reminded me of a brace of loaded pistols. Meanwhile Mme. d’Arpajon had been exchanging with the Princesse de Parme, upon tragic and other kinds of poetry, a series of remarks which did not reach me distinctly until I caught the following from Mme. d’Arpajon: “Oh, Ma’am is sure to be right; I quite admit he makes 252the world seem ugly, because he’s unable to distinguish between ugliness and beauty, or rather because his insufferable vanity makes him believe that everything he says is beautiful; I agree with your Highness that in the piece we are speaking of there are some ridiculous things, quite unintelligible, errors of taste, that it is difficult to understand, that it’s as much trouble to read as if it was written in Russian or Chinese, for of course it’s anything in the world but French, still when one has taken the trouble, how richly one is rewarded, it’s so full of imagination!” Of this little lecture I had missed the opening sentences. I gathered in the end not only that the poet incapable of distinguishing between beauty and ugliness was Victor Hugo, but furthermore that the poem which was as difficult to understand as Chinese or Russian was
Lorsque l’enfant paraît, le cercle de famille
Applaudit à grands cris.
a piece dating from the poet’s earliest period, and perhaps even nearer to Mme. Deshoulières than to the Victor Hugo of the Légende des Siècles. Far from condemning Mme. d’Arpajon as absurd, I saw her (the only one, at that table so matter-of-fact, so nondescript, at which I had sat down with such keen disappointment), I saw her in my mind’s eye crowned with that lace cap, with the long spiral ringlets falling from it on either side, which was worn by Mme. de Rémusat, Mme. de Broglie, Mme. de Saint-Aulaire, all those distinguished women who in their fascinating letters quote with so much learning and so aptly passages from Sophocles, Schiller and the Imitation, but in whom the earliest poetry of the Romantics induced the alarm and exhaustion inseparable for my grandmother 253from the latest verses of Stéphane Mallarmé. “Mme. d’Arpajon is very fond of poetry,” said the Princesse de Parme to her hostess, impressed by the ardent tone in which the speech had been delivered. “No; she knows absolutely nothing about it,” replied Mme. de Guermantes in an undertone, taking advantage of the fact that Mme. d’Arpajon, who was dealing with an objection raised by General de Beautreillis, was too much intent upon what she herself was saying to hear what was being murmured by the Duchess. “She has become literary since she’s been forsaken. I can tell your Highness that it is I who have to bear the whole burden of it because it is to me that she comes in floods of tears whenever Basin hasn’t been to see her, which is practically every day. And yet it isn’t my fault, after all, if she bores him, and I can’t force him to go to her, although I would rather he were a little more faithful to her, because then I shouldn’t see quite so much of her myself. But she drives him crazy, and there’s nothing extraordinary in that. She isn’t a bad sort, but she’s boring to a degree you can’t imagine. And all this because Basin took it into his head for a year or so to play me false with her. And to have in addition a footman who has fallen in love with a little street-walker and goes about with a long face if I don’t request the young person to leave her profitable pavement for half an hour and come to tea with me! Oh! Life really is too tedious!” the Duchess languorously concluded. Mme. d’Arpajon bored M. de Guermantes principally because he had recently fallen in love with another, whom I discovered to be the Marquise de Surgis-le-Duc. At this moment the footman who had been deprived of his holiday was waiting at table. And it struck me that, still disconsolate, he 254was doing it with a good deal of difficulty, for I noticed that, in handing the dish to M. de Châtellerault, he performed his task so awkwardly that the Duke’s elbow came in contact several times with his own. The young Duke was not in the least annoyed with the blushing footman, but looked up at him rather with a smile in his clear blue eyes. This good humour seemed to me on the guest’s part to betoken a kindness of heart. But the persistence of his smile led me to think that, aware of the servant’s discomfiture, what he felt was perhaps
