“You’re quite right,” Mme. de Villeparisis told her 293niece, “these are from the South. It was a florist who sent them round and asked me to accept them as a present. You’re surprised, I dare say, Monsieur Valmère,” she turned to the librarian, “that a florist should make me a present of apple blossom. Well, I may be an old woman, but I’m not quite on the shelf yet, I have still a few friends,” she went on with a smile that might have been taken as a sign of her simple nature but meant rather, I could not help feeling, that she thought it effective to pride herself on the friendship of a mere florist when she moved in such distinguished circles.
Bloch rose and went over to look at the flowers which Mme. de Villeparisis was painting.
“Never mind, Marquise,” said the historian, sitting down again, “even though we should have another of those Revolutions which have stained so many pages of our history with blood—and, upon my soul, in these days one can never tell,” he added, with a circular and circumspect glance, as though to make sure that there was no “disaffected” person in the room, though he had not the least suspicion that there actually was, “with a talent like yours and your five languages you would be certain to get on all right.” The historian of the Fronde was feeling quite refreshed, for he had forgotten his insomnia. But he suddenly remembered that he had not slept for the last six nights, whereupon a crushing weariness, born of his mind, paralysed his limbs, made him bow his shoulders, and his melancholy face began to droop like an old man’s.
Bloch tried to express his admiration in an appropriate gesture, but only succeeded in knocking over with his 294elbow the glass containing the spray of apple blossom, and all the water was spilled on the carpet.
“Really, you have the fingers of a fairy,” went on (to the Marquise) the historian who, having his back turned, to me at that moment, had not noticed Bloch’s clumsiness.
But Bloch took this for a sneer at himself, and to cover his shame in insolence retorted: “It’s not of the slightest importance; I’m not wet.”
Mme. de Villeparisis rang the bell and a footman came to wipe the carpet and pick up the fragments of glass. She invited the two young men to her theatricals, and also Mme. de Guermantes, with the injunction:
“Remember to tell Gisèle and Berthe” (the Duchesses d’Auberjon and de Portefin) “to be here a little before two to help me,” as she might have told the hired waiters to come early to arrange the tables.
She treated her princely relatives, as she treated M. de Norpois, without any of the little courtesies which she shewed to the historian, Cottard, Bloch and myself, and they seemed to have no interest for her beyond the possibility of serving them up as food for our social curiosity. This was because she knew that she need not put herself out to entertain people for whom she was not a more or less brilliant woman but the touchy old sister—who needed and received tactful handling—of their father or uncle. There would have been no object in her trying to shine before them, she could never have deceived them as to the strength and weakness of her position, for they knew (none so well) her whole history and respected the illustrious race from which she sprang. But, above all, they had ceased to be anything more for her than a dead stock which would not bear fruit again, they would not let her 295know their new friends, or share their pleasures. She could obtain from them only their occasional presence, or the possibility of speaking of them, at her five o’clock tea-parties as, later on, in her Memoirs, of which these parties were only a sort of rehearsal, a preliminary reading aloud of the manuscript before a selected audience. And the society which all these noble kinsmen and kinswomen served to interest, to dazzle, to enthral, the society of the Cottards, of the Blochs, of the dramatists who were in the public eye at the moment, of the historians of the Fronde and such matters; it was in this society that there existed for Mme. de Villeparisis—failing that section of the fashionable world which did not call upon her—the movement, the novelty, all the entertainment of life, it was from people like these that she was able to derive social benefits (which made it well worth her while to let them meet, now and then, though without ever coming to know her, the Duchesse de Guermantes), dinners with remarkable men whose work had interested her, a light opera or a pantomime staged complete by its author in her drawing-room, boxes for interesting shows. Bloch got up to go. He had said aloud that the incident of the broken flower-glass was of no importance, but what he said to himself was different, more different still what he thought: “If people can’t train their servants to put flowers where they won’t be knocked over and wet their guests and probably cut their hands, it’s much better not to go in for such luxuries,” he muttered angrily. He was one of those susceptible, highly strung persons who cannot bear to think of themselves as having made a blunder which, though they do not admit even to themselves that they have made it, is enough to spoil their whole day. In a 296black rage, he was just making up his mind never to go into society again. He had reached the point at which some distraction was imperative. Fortunately in another minute Mme. de Villeparisis was to press him to stay. Either because she was aware of the general feeling among her friends, and had noticed the tide of anti-semitism that was beginning to rise, or simply from carelessness, she had not introduced him to any of the people in the room. He, however, being little used to society, felt bound before leaving the room to take leave of them all, to shew his manners, but without any friendliness; he lowered his head several times, buried his bearded chin in his collar, scrutinised each of the party in turn through his glasses with a cold, dissatisfied glare. But Mme. de Villeparisis stopped him; she had still to discuss with him the little play which was to be performed in her house, and also she did not wish him to leave before he had had the pleasure of meeting M. de Norpois (whose failure to appear puzzled her), although as an inducement to Bloch this introduction was quite superfluous, he having already decided to persuade the two actresses whose names he had mentioned to her to come and sing for nothing in the Marquise’s drawing-room, to enhance their own reputations, at one of those parties to which all that was best and noblest in Europe thronged. He had even offered her, in addition, a tragic actress “with pure eyes, fair as Hera,” who would recite lyrical prose with a sense of plastic beauty. But on hearing this lady’s name Mme. de Villeparisis had declined, for it was that of Saint-Loup’s mistress.
“I have better news,” she murmured in my ear, “I really believe he’s quite cooled off now, and that before 297very long they’ll be parted—in spite of an officer who has played an abominable part in the whole business,” she added. For Robert’s family were beginning to look with a deadly hatred on M. de Borodino, who had given him leave, at the hairdresser’s instance, to go to Bruges, and accused him of giving countenance to an infamous intrigue. “It’s really too bad of him,” said Mme. de Villeparisis with that virtuous accent common to all the Guermantes, even the most depraved. “Too, too bad,” she repeated, giving the word a trio of ’t’s. One felt that she had no doubt of the Prince’s being present at all their orgies. But, as kindness of heart was the old lady’s dominant quality, her expression of frowning severity towards the horrible captain, whose name she articulated with an ironical emphasis: “The Prince de Borodino!”—speaking as a woman for whom the Empire simply did not count, melted into a gentle smile at myself with a mechanical twitch of the eyelid indicating a vague understanding between us.
“I have a great admiration for de Saint-Loup-en-Bray,” said Bloch, “dirty dog as he is, because he’s so extremely well-bred. I have a great admiration, not for him but for well-bred people, they’re so rare,” he went on, without thinking, since he was himself so extremely ill-bred, what offence his words were giving. “I will give you an example which I consider most striking of his perfect breeding. I met him once with a young gentleman just as he was about to spring into his wheelèd chariot, after he himself had buckled their splendid harness on a pair of steeds, whose mangers were heaped with oats and barley, who had no need of the flashing whip to urge them on. He introduced us, but I did not catch the gentleman’s 298name; one never does catch people’s names when one’s introduced to them,” he explained with a laugh, this being one of his father’s witticisms. “De Saint-Loup-en-Bray was perfectly calm, made no fuss about the young gentleman, seemed absolutely at his ease. Well, I found out, by pure chance, a day or two later, that the young gentleman was
