In Search of Lost Time, Volume III_ The Guermantes Way - Marcel Proust [132]
“So you know The Seven Princesses, do you?” said the Duchess. “I congratulate you! I only know one, but she’s quite enough; I have no wish to make the acquaintance of the other six. If they’re all like the one I’ve seen!”
“What a goose!” I thought to myself, irritated by her icy greeting. I found a sort of bitter satisfaction in this proof of her total incomprehension of Maeterlinck. “To think that’s the woman I walk miles every morning to see. Really, I’m too kind. Well, it’s my turn now to ignore her.” Those were the words I said to myself, but they were the opposite of what I thought; they were purely conversational words such as we say to ourselves at those moments when, too excited to remain quietly alone with ourselves, we feel the need, for want of another listener, to talk to ourselves, without meaning what we say, as we talk to a stranger.
“I can’t tell you what it was like,” the Duchess went on. “It was enough to make you howl with laughter. Most people did, rather too much, I’m sorry to say, for the young person was not at all pleased and Robert has never really forgiven me. Though I can’t say I’m sorry, actually, because if it had been a success the lady would perhaps have come again, and I don’t think Marie-Aynard would have been exactly thrilled.”
Marie-Aynard was the name given in the family to Robert’s mother, Mme de Marsantes, the widow of Aynard de Saint-Loup, to distinguish her from her cousin, the Princesse de Guermantes-Bavière, also a Marie, to whose Christian name her nephews and cousins and brothers-in-law added, to avoid confusion, either that of her husband or another of her own, making her Marie-Gilbert or Marie-Hedwige.
“To begin with, there was a sort of rehearsal the night before, which was a wonderful affair!” went on Mme de Guermantes in ironical pursuit of her theme. “Just imagine, she uttered a sentence, no, not so much, not a quarter of a sentence, and then she stopped; after which she didn’t open her mouth—I’m not exaggerating—for a good five minutes.”
“Oh, I say,” cried M. d’Argencourt.
“With the utmost politeness I took the liberty of suggesting to her that this might seem a little unusual. And she said—I give you her actual words—‘One ought always to recite a thing as though one were just composing it oneself.’ It’s really monumental, that reply, when you come to think of it!”
“But I understood she wasn’t at all bad at reciting poetry,” said one of the two young men.
“She hasn’t the ghost of a notion what poetry is,” replied Mme de Guermantes. “However, I didn’t need to listen to her to tell that. It was quite enough to see her arriving with her lilies. I knew at once that she couldn’t have any talent when I saw those lilies!”
Everybody laughed.
“I hope, my dear aunt, you weren’t annoyed by my little joke the other day about the Queen of Sweden. I’ve come to ask your forgiveness.”
“Oh, no, I’m not at all angry, I even give you leave to eat at my table, if you’re hungry,—Come along, M. Vallenères, you’re the daughter of the house,” Mme de Villeparisis went on to the archivist, repeating a time-honoured pleasantry.
M. de Guermantes sat up in the armchair into which he had sunk, his hat on the carpet by his side, and examined with a satisfied smile the plate of cakes that was being held out to him.
“Why, certainly, now that I’m beginning to feel at home in this distinguished company, I will take a sponge-cake; they look excellent.”
“This gentleman makes you an admirable daughter,” commented M. d’Argencourt, whom the spirit of imitation prompted to keep Mme de Villeparisis’s little joke in circulation.
The archivist handed the plate of cakes to the historian of the Fronde.
“You perform your functions admirably,” said the latter, startled into speech, and hoping also to win the sympathy of the crowd. At the same time he cast a covert glance of connivance at those who had anticipated him.
“Tell me, my dear