In Search of Lost Time, Volume I_ Swann's Way - Marcel Proust [213]
Swann declined. Having told M. de Charlus that on leaving Mme de Saint-Euverte’s he would go straight home, he did not care to run the risk, by going on now to the Princesse de Parme’s, of missing a message which he had all the time been hoping to see brought in to him by one of the footmen during the party, and which he might perhaps find with his own porter when he got home.
“Poor Swann,” said Mme des Laumes that night to her husband, “he’s as charming as ever, but he does look so dreadfully unhappy. You’ll see for yourself, as he has promised to dine with us one of these days. I do feel it’s absurd that a man of his intelligence should let himself suffer for a woman of that sort, and one who isn’t even interesting, for they tell me she’s an absolute idiot!” she added with the wisdom invariably shown by people who, not being in love themselves, feel that a clever man should only be unhappy about a person who is worth his while; which is rather like being astonished that anyone should condescend to die of cholera at the bidding of so insignificant a creature as the comma bacillus.
Swann wanted to go home, but just as he was making his escape, General de Froberville caught him and asked for an introduction to Mme de Cambremer, and he was obliged to go back into the room with him to look for her.
“I say, Swann, I’d rather be married to that little woman than slaughtered by savages, what do you say?”
The words “slaughtered by savages” pierced Swann’s aching heart; and at once he felt the need to continue the conversation. “Ah!” he began, “some fine lives have been lost in that way … There was, you remember, that navigator whose remains Dumont d’Urville brought back, La Pérouse …” (and he was at once happy again, as though he had named Odette). “He was a fine character, and interests me very much, does La Pérouse,” he added with a melancholy air.
“Oh, yes, of course, La Pérouse,” said the General. “It’s quite a well-known name. There’s a street called that.”
“Do you know anyone in the Rue La Pérouse?” asked Swann excitedly.
“Only Mme de Chanlivault, the sister of that good fellow Chaussepierre. She gave a most amusing theatre-party the other evening. That’ll be a really elegant salon one of these days, you’ll see!”
“Oh, so she lives in the Rue La Pérouse. It’s attractive, a delightful street, so gloomy.”
“Not at all. You can’t have been in it for a long time; it isn’t gloomy now; they’re beginning to build all round there.”
When Swann did finally introduce M. de Froberville to the young Mme de Cambremer, since it was the first time she had heard the General’s name she offered him the smile of joy and surprise with which she would have greeted him if no one had ever uttered any other; for, not knowing any of the friends of her new family, whenever someone was presented to her she assumed that he must be one of them, and thinking that she was showing evidence of tact by appearing to have heard such a lot about him since her marriage, she would hold out her hand with a hesitant air that was meant as a proof at once of the inculcated reserve which she had to overcome and of the spontaneous friendliness which successfully overcame it. And so her parents-in-law, whom she still regarded as the most eminent people in France, declared that she was an angel; all the more so because they preferred to appear, in marrying their son to her, to have yielded to the attraction rather of her natural charm than of her considerable fortune.
“It’s easy to see that you’re a musician heart and soul, Madame,” said the General, alluding to the incident of the candle.