In Search of Lost Time, Volume III_ The Guermantes Way - Marcel Proust [168]
I was thinking of taking advantage of these unexpectedly ardent predispositions on M. de Charlus’s part to ask him whether he could not arrange for me to meet his sister-in-law when suddenly I felt my arm violently jerked as though by an electric shock. It was M. de Charlus who had hurriedly withdrawn his arm from mine. Although as he talked he had allowed his eyes to wander in all directions, he had only just caught sight of M. d’Argencourt emerging from a side street. On seeing us, the Belgian Minister appeared annoyed and gave me a look of distrust, almost that look intended for a creature of another race with which Mme de Guermantes had scrutinised Bloch, and tried to avoid us. But it was as though M. de Charlus was determined to show him that he was not at all anxious not to be seen by him, for he called after him to tell him something of extreme insignificance. And fearing perhaps that M. d’Argencourt had not recognised me, M. de Charlus informed him that I was a great friend of Mme de Villeparisis, of the Duchesse de Guermantes, of Robert de Saint-Loup, and that he himself, Charlus, was an old friend of my grandmother, glad to be able to show her grandson a little of the affection that he felt for her. Nevertheless I observed that M. d’Argencourt, although I had barely been introduced to him at Mme de Villeparisis’s and M. de Charlus had now spoken to him at great length about my family, was distinctly colder to me than he had been an hour ago, and thereafter, for a long time, he showed the same aloofness whenever we met. He examined me now with a curiosity in which there was no sign of friendliness, and seemed even to have to overcome an instinctive repulsion when, on leaving us, after a moment’s hesitation, he held out a hand to me which he at once withdrew.
“I’m sorry about that,” said M. de Charlus. “That fellow Argencourt, well born but ill bred, a worse than second-rate diplomat, an execrable husband and a womaniser, as double-faced as a villain in a play, is one of those men who are incapable of understanding but perfectly capable of destroying the things in life that are really great. I hope that our friendship will be one of them, if it is ever to be formed, and that you will do me the honour of keeping it—as I shall—well clear of the heels of any of those donkeys who, from idleness or clumsiness or sheer malice, trample on what seemed destined to endure. Unfortunately, that is the mould in which most society people have been cast.”
“The Duchesse de Guermantes seems to be very intelligent. We were talking this afternoon about the possibility of war. It appears that she is especially knowledgeable on that subject.”
“She is nothing of the sort,” replied M. de Charlus tartly. “Women, and most men for that matter, understand nothing about what I wished to speak to you of. My sister-in-law is an agreeable woman who imagines that we are still living in the days of Balzac’s novels, when women had an influence on politics. Association with her could at present only have a most unfortunate effect on you, as for that matter all social intercourse. That was one of the very things I was about to tell you when that fool interrupted me. The first sacrifice that you must make for me—I shall claim them from you in proportion to the gifts I bestow on you—is to give up going into society. It distressed me this afternoon to see you at that idiotic gathering. You will tell me that I was there myself, but for me it was not a social gathering, it was simply a family visit. Later on, when you are a man of established position, if it amuses you to stoop for a moment to that sort of thing, it may perhaps do no harm. And then I need not point out how invaluable I can be to you. The ‘Open Sesame’ to the Guermantes house, and any others that it is worth