In Search of Lost Time, Volume III_ The Guermantes Way - Marcel Proust [114]
“I understand, M’sieur, that you want to write somethin’ about Mme la Duchesse de Montmorency,” said Mme de Villeparisis to the historian of the Fronde in the gruff tone with which her genuine affability was furrowed by the shrivelled crotchiness, the physiological spleen of old age, as well as by the affectation of imitating the almost rustic speech of the old nobility. “I’ll show you her portrait, the original of the copy they have in the Louvre.”
She rose, laying down her brushes beside the flowers, and the little apron which then came into sight at her waist, and which she wore so as not to stain her dress with paint, added still further to the impression of an old peasant given by her bonnet and her big spectacles, and offered a sharp contrast to the luxury of her household, the butler who had brought in the tea and cakes, the liveried footman for whom she now rang to light up the portrait of the Duchesse de Montmorency, abbess of one of the most famous chapters in the east of France. Everyone had risen. “What is rather amusin’,” said our hostess, “is that in these chapters where our great-aunts were so often made abbesses, the daughters of the King of France would not have been admitted. They were very exclusive chapters.” “The King’s daughters not admitted!” cried Bloch in amazement, “why ever not?” “Why, because the House of France had not enough quarterin’s after that misalliance.” Bloch’s bewilderment increased. “A misalliance? The House of France? When was that?” “Why, when they married into the Medicis,” replied Mme de Villeparisis in the most natural tone in the world. “It’s a fine picture, is it not, and in a perfect state of preservation,” she added.
“My dear,” said the lady with the Marie-Antoinette hair-style, “surely you remember that when I brought Liszt to see you he said that it was this one that was the copy.”
“I shall bow to any opinion of Liszt’s on music, but not on painting. Besides, he was already gaga, and I don’t remember his ever saying anything of the sort. But it wasn’t you who brought him here. I had met him any number of times at dinner at Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein’s.”
Alix’s shot had misfired; she stood silent, erect and motionless. Plastered with layers of powder, her face had the appearance of stone. And, since the profile was noble, she seemed, on a triangular, moss-grown pedestal hidden by her cape, like a crumbling goddess in a park.
“Ah, I see another fine portrait,” said the historian.
The door opened and the Duchesse de Guermantes entered the room.
“Oh, good evening,” Mme de Villeparisis greeted her without even a nod of the head, taking from her apron-pocket a hand which she held out to the newcomer; and ceasing at once to pay any further attention to her niece, turned back to the historian: “That is the portrait of the Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld . . .”
A young servant with a bold manner and a charming face (but so finely chiselled to ensure its perfection that the nose was a little red and the rest of the skin slightly inflamed as though they were still smarting from the recent sculptural incision) came in bearing a card on a salver.
“It is that gentleman who has been several times to see Mme la Marquise.”
“Did you tell him I was at home?”
“He heard the voices.”
“Oh, very well then, show him in. It’s a gentleman who was introduced to me,” she explained. “He told me he was very anxious to come to my house. I certainly never said he might. But he’s taken the trouble to call five times now, and it doesn’t do to hurt people’s feelings.