In Search of Lost Time, Volume III_ The Guermantes Way - Marcel Proust [284]
I made a remark that implied that I had no admiration for M. de Bornier.
“Ah! have you got something against him?” the Duke asked with genuine curiosity, for he always imagined when anyone spoke ill of a man that it must be on account of a personal resentment, just as to speak well of a woman marked the beginning of a love affair. “You’ve obviously got a grudge against him. What did he do to you? You must tell us. Why yes, there must be some skeleton in the cupboard or you wouldn’t run him down. It’s long-winded, La Fille de Roland, but it’s quite strong in parts.”
“Strong is just the word for such an odorous author,” Mme de Guermantes broke in sarcastically. “If this poor boy ever found himself in his company I can quite understand that he got up his nostrils!”
“I must confess, though, Ma’am,” the Duke went on, addressing the Princesse de Parme, “that quite apart from La Fille de Roland, in literature and even in music I’m terribly old-fashioned; no old junk can be too stale for my taste. You won’t believe me, perhaps, but in the evenings, if my wife sits down to the piano, I find myself calling for some old tune by Auber or Boieldieu, or even Beethoven! That’s the sort of thing I like. As for Wagner, he sends me to sleep at once.”
“You’re wrong there,” said Mme de Guermantes. “In spite of his insufferable long-windedness, Wagner was a genius. Lohengrin is a masterpiece. Even in Tristan there are some intriguing passages here and there. And the Spinning Chorus in the Flying Dutchman is a perfect marvel.”
“Aren’t I right, Babal,” said M. de Guermantes, turning to M. de Bréauté, “what we like is:
The gatherings of noble companions
Are all of them held in this charming haunt.26
It’s delightful. And Fra Diavolo and the Magic Flute, and Le Chalet, and the Marriage of Figaro, and Les Diamants de la Couronne—there’s music for you! It’s the same thing in literature. For instance, I adore Balzac, Le Bal de Sceaux, Les Mohicans de Paris.”
“Ah! my dear man, if you’re off on the subject of Balzac we’ll be here all night. Keep it for some evening when Mémé’s here. He’s even better, he knows it all by heart.”
Irritated by his wife’s interruption, the Duke held her for some seconds under the fare of a menacing silence. Meanwhile Mme d’Arpajon had been exchanging with the Princesse de Parme some remarks about poetry, tragic and otherwise, which did not reach me distinctly until I caught the following from Mme d’Arpajon: “Oh, I quite agree with all that, I admit he makes the world seem ugly because he’s unable to distinguish between ugliness and beauty, or rather because his insufferable vanity makes him believe that everything he says is beautiful. I agree with your Highness that in the piece in question there are some ridiculous things, unintelligible, and errors of taste, and that it’s difficult to understand, that it’s as much trouble to read as if it was written in Russian or Chinese, because obviously it’s anything in the world but French; but still, when one has taken the trouble, how richly one is rewarded, it’s so full of imagination!”
I had missed the opening sentences of this little lecture. I gathered in the end not only that the poet incapable of distinguishing between beauty and ugliness was Victor Hugo, but furthermore that the poem which was as difficult to understand as Chinese or Russian was a piece dating from the poet’s earliest period, and perhaps even nearer to Mme Deshoulières27 than to the Victor Hugo of the Légende des Siècles. Far from thinking Mme d’Arpajon ridiculous, I saw her (the first person at this table, so real and so ordinary, at which I had sat down with such keen disappointment),