In Search of Lost Time, Volume III_ The Guermantes Way - Marcel Proust [151]
With an inexpressible sense of pleasure the Prince felt that the lock no longer resisted and that at last the key was turning.
“Such an alternative is wholly unnecessary, my dear Prince,” replied M. de Norpois. “Nothing could be more in harmony with the Institut than the house you speak of, which is a regular breeding-ground of academicians. I shall convey your request to Mme la Marquise de Villeparisis: she will undoubtedly be flattered. As for her dining with you, she goes out very little, and that will perhaps be more difficult to arrange. But I shall introduce you to her and you will plead your cause in person. You must on no account give up the Academy; tomorrow fortnight, as it happens, I shall be having luncheon, before going on with him to an important meeting, with Leroy-Beaulieu, without whom nobody can be elected; I had already allowed myself in conversation with him to let fall your name, with which, naturally, he was perfectly familiar. He raised certain objections. But it so happens that he requires the support of my group at the next election, and I fully intend to return to the charge; I shall tell him frankly of the extremely cordial ties that unite us, I shall not conceal from him that, if you were to stand, I should ask all my friends to vote for you” (here the Prince breathed a deep sigh of relief), “and he knows that I have friends. I consider that if I were to succeed in obtaining his co-operation, your chances would become very real. Come that evening, at six, to Mme de Villeparisis’s. I will introduce you, and at the same time will be able to give you an account of my morning meeting.”
Thus it was that Prince von Faffenheim had been led to call upon Mme de Villeparisis. My profound disillusionment occurred when he spoke. It had never struck me that, whereas a period has features both particular and general which are stronger than those of a nationality, so that in an illustrated dictionary which goes so far as to include an authentic portrait of Minerva, Leibniz with his periwig and his neckerchief differs little from Marivaux or Samuel Bernard, a nationality has particular features stronger than those of a caste. In the present instance these found expression not in a discourse in which I had expected to hear the rustling of the elves and the dance of the kobolds, but by a transposition which certified no less plainly that poetic origin: the fact that as he bowed, short, red-faced and portly, over the hand of Mme de Villeparisis, the Rhinegrave said to her: “Goot-tay, Matame la Marquise,” in the accent of an Alsatian concierge.
“Won’t you let me give you a cup of tea or a little of this tart, it’s so good?” Mme de Guermantes asked me, anxious to have shown herself as friendly as possible. “I do the honours in this house just as if it was mine,” she explained in an ironical tone which gave a slightly guttural sound to her voice, as though she were trying to stifle a hoarse laugh.
“Monsieur,” said Mme de Villeparisis to M. de Norpois, “you won’t forget that you have something to say to the Prince about the Academy?”
Mme de Guermantes lowered her eyes and gave a semicircular turn to her wrist to look at the time.
“Gracious! It’s time I said good-bye to my aunt if I’m to get to Mme de Saint-Ferréol’s, and I’m dining with Mme Leroi.”
And she rose without bidding me good-bye. She had just caught sight of Mme Swann, who appeared somewhat embarrassed at finding me in the room. Doubtless she remembered that she had been the first to assure me that she was convinced of Dreyfus’s innocence.
“I don’t want my mother to introduce me to Mme Swann,” Saint-Loup said to me. “She’s an ex-whore. Her husband’s a Jew, and she comes here to pose as a Nationalist. Hallo, here’s my uncle Palamède.”
The arrival of Mme Swann had a special interest for me, owing to an incident which had occurred a few days earlier and which it is necessary to relate because of the consequences which it was