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By Root 1970 0

of meeting M. de Norpois (whose failure to appear surprised 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, in the interest of their careers, at one of those receptions to which the élite of Europe thronged. He had even offered in addition a tragic actress “with sea-green 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 it’s on its last legs, and that before very long they’ll have separated—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 hair-dresser’s instance, to go to Bruges, and accused him of giving countenance to an infamous liaison.) “He’s a very bad man,” said Mme de Villeparisis with that virtuous accent common to all the Guermantes, even the most depraved. “Very, very bad,” she repeated, emphasising the word “very” and rolling the ‘r’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!”—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 connivance between us.

“I was quite fond of de Saint-Loup-en-Bray,” said Bloch, “dirty dog though he is, because he’s extremely well-bred. I have a great admiration for well-bred people, they’re so rare,” he went on, without realising, since he was himself so extremely ill-bred, how displeasing his words were. “I will give you an example which I consider most striking of his perfect breeding. I met him once with a young man just as he was about to spring into his wheelèd chariot, after he himself had buckled their splendid harness on a pair of steeds nourished 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 young man’s name—one never does catch people’s names when one’s introduced to them,” he added with a laugh, this being one of his father’s witticisms. “De Saint-Loup-en-Bray remained perfectly natural, made no fuss about the young man, seemed absolutely at his ease. Well, I found out by pure chance a day or two later that the young man was the son of Sir Rufus Israels!”

The end of this story sounded less shocking than its preface, for it remained quite incomprehensible to everyone in the room. The fact was that Sir Rufus Israels, who seemed to Bloch and his father an almost royal personage before whom Saint-Loup ought to tremble, was in the eyes of the Guermantes world a foreign upstart, tolerated in society, on whose friendship nobody would ever have dreamed of priding himself—far from it.

“I learned this,” said Bloch, “from Sir Rufus Israels’ agent, who is a friend of my father and a quite remarkable man. Oh, an absolutely wonderful individual,” he added with that affirmative energy, that note of enthusiasm which one puts only into convictions that do not originate from oneself.

“But tell me,” Bloch asked me, lowering his voice, “how much money do you suppose Saint-Loup has? Not that it matters to me in the least, you quite understand. I’m interested from the Balzacian point of view. You don’t happen to know what it’s in, French stocks, foreign stocks, or land or what?”

I could give him no information whatsoever. Suddenly raising his voice, Bloch asked if he might open the windows, and without waiting for an answer, went across the room to do so. Mme de Villeparisis said that it was out of the question, as she had a cold. “Oh,