Part 5

Sodom and Gomorrah: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 4
by Marcel Proust, John Sturrock (Translator)

(Page 5 of 5)

I caught sight of Swann, and wanted to speak to him, but at that moment I saw that the Prince de Guermantes, instead of receiving Odette's husband's greeting there, where he stood, had immediately, with the force of a suction pump, dragged him off to the end of the garden, but, so certain persons informed me, "in order to show him the door."

So distracted in society that I did not learn until two days later, from the newspapers, that a Czech orchestra had been playing throughout the evening and that there had been, minute by minute, a constant succession of Bengal fire, I recovered a certain capacity for attentiveness at the thought of going to see Hubert Robert's celebrated fountain.

It could be seen from afar, set up to one side, in a clearing sequestered by beautiful trees, several of which were as old as it was, slender, immobile, solidified, allowing only the faintest spray, falling back from its pale and tremulous plume, to be disturbed by the breeze. The eighteenth century had purified the elegance of its lines, but, in determining the jet's style, seemed to have arrested its life; at this distance, you had an impression of art rather than the sensation of the water. The moist cloud that was perpetually gathering at its summit had itself preserved the character of the age, like those that congregate in the sky around the palaces of Versailles. But from close up, you became aware that, even as they respected, like the stones of an ancient palace, the design traced out for them beforehand, the waters were being constantly renewed as they sprang upward, seeking to obey the ancient orders of the architect, and executing them accurately only by appearing to violate them, their innumerable scattered surges able to give the impression of a single impulse only from a distance. This last was in actual fact as frequently interrupted as the scattering of its fall, whereas, from a distance, it had seemed to me dense, inflexible, of an unbroken continuity. From quite close up, you could see that this continuity, altogether linear in appearance, was ensured at every point in the jet's ascent, wherever it ought to have been broken, by the coming into play, the lateral reprise, of a parallel jet that rose higher than the first and was itself, at a greater, and by now exhausting, height, relieved by a third. From close to, spent drops were falling back from the column of water and meeting their ascending sisters along the way, and now and again, torn and seized by an eddy of the air disturbed by this tireless upsurge, they drifted before capsizing into the basin. By their vacillations, and by traveling in the contrary direction, they frustrated, and with their soft vapor they blurred, the verticality and tension of this shaft, which bore above it an oblong cloud formed of innumerable droplets, yet appearing to have been painted an immutable golden brown, which rose, infrangible, immobile, slender, and rapid, to add itself to the clouds in the sky. Unfortunately, a puff of wind was enough to send it obliquely across the ground; at times even, a single disobedient jet would diverge and, had it not remained at a respectful distance, would have soaked the incautious crowd of onlookers to the skin.

One of these minor accidents, which hardly ever occurred except at moments when the breeze got up, was somewhat disagreeable. Mme d'Arpajon had been led to believe that the Duc de Guermantes - in actual fact not yet arrived - was with Mme de Surgis in the galleries of pink marble, which were reached through the double colonnade, hollow inside, that rose from the rim of the basin. Now, just as Mme d'Arpajon was about to enter one of these colonnades, a strong gust from the warm breeze twisted the jet of water and inundated the good lady so thoroughly that, with the water trickling down inside her dress from her décolletage, she was as soaked as if she had been plunged into a bath. Then, not far away, a rhythmical rumbling sounded, loud enough to be audible by an entire army, yet prolonged in periods as if it were addressed not to the whole assembly but successively to each section of the troops; it was the Grand Duke Vladimir, laughing for all he was worth at the sight of Mme d'Arpajon's immersion, one of the jolliest things, he liked to say afterward, he had ever witnessed in all his life. A few charitable souls pointing out to the Muscovite that a word of condolence from him was perhaps in order and would give pleasure to the lady, who, although she would never see forty again, and even as she was mopping herself with her scarf, without asking for anyone's help, had extricated herself, despite the water that had made the rim of the basin treacherously wet, the Grand Duke, a kindly man at heart, thought action was called for, and, the last drumrolls of laughter having hardly been stilled, a fresh rumbling could be heard, still more violent than the earlier one. "Bravo, old girl!" he cried, clapping his hands as if at the theater. Mme d'Arpajon did not appreciate having her dexterity praised at the expense of her youth. And when someone said to her, deafened by the sound of the water, which was dominated even so by the thunder of Monseigneur, "I believe His Imperial Highness said something to you." "No, it was to Mme de Souvré," she replied.

I crossed the gardens and reascended the steps, where the absence of the Prince, who had vanished off to one side with Swann, had swollen the crowd of guests around M. de Charlus, just as, when Louis XIV was not at Versailles, more people gathered at Monsieur his brother's. I was stopped as I passed by the Baron, while behind me two ladies and a young man were approaching to greet him.

"It's nice to see you here," he said, offering me his hand. "Good evening, Mme de La Trémoïlle; good evening, my dear Herminie." But no doubt the memory of what he had said to me concerning his role as head of the Guermantes hôtel had given him the desire to appear to be feeling, with regard to what displeased him but which he had been unable to prevent, a satisfaction to which his lordly impertinence and his hysterical amusement at once lent a form of excessive irony: "It's nice," he repeated, "but above all it's very comic." And he began to let out roars of laughter that seemed to testify both to his delight and to the incapacity of human speech to give it expression, as certain people meanwhile, knowing both how hard of access he was and how liable to insolent "outbursts," approached in curiosity and then, with an almost indecent haste, took to their heels. "Come, don't be angry," he said, touching me gently on the shoulder, "you know I'm very fond of you. Good evening, Antioche, good evening, Louis-René. Have you been to see the fountain?" he asked me in a tone of voice more affirmative than questioning. "It's very pretty, is it not? It's marvelous. It could be even better, of course, by doing away with certain things, then there'd be nothing to equal it in France. But even as it is, it's among the best things. Bréauté will tell you they were wrong to hang lanterns, to try and make people forget it was he who had that absurd idea. But when all's said and done, he succeeded in making it only a little bit uglier. It's much harder to disfigure a masterpiece than to create it. We already had a vague suspicion anyway that Bréauté was no Hubert Robert."

I rejoined the line of visitors who were entering the house. "Has it been long since you saw my delightful cousin Oriane?" the Princesse asked me; she had shortly before deserted her armchair by the entrance, and with her I now returned to the drawing rooms. "She's due to be here this evening, I saw her during the afternoon," added our hostess. "She promised me. I believe, in any case, that you are dining with the two of us at the Queen of Italy's, in the embassy, on Thursday. Every possible Highness will be there, it'll be most intimidating." They could in no way have intimidated the Princesse de Guermantes, whose drawing rooms teemed with them, and who used to say "my little Coburgs" as she might have said "my little dogs." And so Mme de Guermantes said, "It'll be most intimidating," out of sheer silliness, which, among society people, even outweighs their vanity. With respect to her own genealogy, she knew less than an agrégé in history. Where her connections were concerned, she was keen to show that she knew the nicknames they had been given. Having asked me whether I would be dining the following week at the Marquise de la Pommelière's, often known as "la Pomme," the Princesse, having obtained a negative reply, was silent for a few moments. Then, for no reason other than a deliberate display of involuntary erudition, banality, and conformity to the prevailing spirit, she added, "She's quite an agreeable woman, la Pomme!"

It was just as the Princesse was talking with me that the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes made their entrance. But I was unable at first to go forward to them, for I was snapped up in passing by the Turkish ambassadress, who, pointing to our hostess, whom I had just left, exclaimed, seizing hold of me by the arm: "Oh, what a delightful woman the Princesse is! A being so superior to all others! I fancy that were I a man," she added, with a hint of Oriental obsequiousness and sensuality, "I would devote my life to that heavenly creature." I replied that I indeed found her charming, but that I knew her cousin the Duchesse better. "But there's no comparison," the ambassadress said to me. "Oriane is a charming woman of the world who gets her wit from Mémé and Babal, whereas Marie-Gilbert is somebody."

I never much like thus being told without possibility of reply what I am to think about people whom I know. And there was no reason why the Turkish ambassadress's judgment as to the merits of the Duchesse de Guermantes should be any more sure than my own. On the other hand, which also explained my irritation with the ambassadress, the fact is that the defects of a mere acquaintance, or even of a friend, are for us true poisons, against which we are fortunately "mithridatized." But, without making the least show of scientific comparisons and talking of anaphylaxis, let me say that, at the heart of our friendly or merely social dealings, there is a hostility, cured temporarily but recurring in fits. Normally, we suffer little from these poisons as long as people are "natural." By saying "Babal" and "Mémé," to refer to people whom she did not know, the Turkish ambassadress had suspended the effects of the "mithridatism" that normally made her bearable. She had irritated me, which was the more unjust inasmuch as she had not spoken in this way in order to make me think she was an intimate of "Mémé," but because an over-rapid education had led her to name these noble lords according to what she believed was the local custom. She had completed her schooling in a few months without seeing it through to the end. But, on reflection, I discovered another reason for my displeasure at remaining with the ambassadress. It was not long since, at "Oriane's," this same diplomatic personage had told me, wearing a serious, considered expression, that the Princesse de Guermantes was frankly antipathetic to her. I saw fit not to dwell on this about-face: the invitation to this evening's party had brought it about. The ambassadress was perfectly sincere in telling me that the Princesse de Guermantes was a sublime creature. She had always thought so. But, never having until now been invited to the Princesse's, she thought she must give to this kind of noninvitation the form of a voluntary abstention founded on principle. Now that she had been invited, and very likely would be from now on, her sympathy could express itself freely. There is no need, in order to explain three-quarters of the opinions held about people, to go so far as a love that has been spurned or an exclusion from political power. Our judgment remains unsure: an invitation refused or received determines it. Moreover, the Turkish ambassadress, in the words of the Duchesse de Guermantes, who was carrying out an inspection of the drawing rooms with me, "did well." She was above all very useful. The true stars of society are weary of appearing there. Anyone who is curious to set eyes on them has often to immigrate into another hemisphere, where they are more or less alone. But women of the Ottoman ambassadress's kind, newly entered into society, do not fail to shine there, everywhere at once, so to speak. They are useful to performances of the kind known as a soirée or a rout, to which they would have themselves dragged from their deathbeds rather than miss them. They are the extras on whom you can always count, zealous in never missing a party. Thus foolish young men, unaware that they are false stars, see them as the queens of fashion, whereas instruction would be needed to explain to them the reasons in virtue of which Mme Standish, not known to them and who paints cushions, far away from society, is at least as great a lady as the Duchesse de Doudeauville.

© 2005 Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Marcel Proust was born in Auteuil in 1871. His father, an eminent Professor of Medicine, was Roman Catholic and his mother was Jewish, factors that were to play an important role in his life and work. He was a brilliant, very literary schoolboy, and later a half-hearted student of law and political science. In his twenties he became an assiduous society figure, frequenting the most fashionable Paris salons of the day. During this period he published a volume of sketches and stories, Les Plaisirs et le jours, and between 1895 and 1900 wrote a novel, Jean Santeuil, which was in many ways a first draft for his masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu.

John Sturrock is a writer and critic who has previously translated Victor Hugo, Stendhal, and Rimbaud. A consulting editor at the London Review of Books, he lives in West Sussex, England.