• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1842 0

(sometimes indeed among the ruins of a Roman theatre and beneath a column dedicated to Venus) are engaged in reading Voltaire’s Mérope or Alzire. And, so remote, so distinct from, so superior to the educated women of the middle classes whom I had known, the similar culture by which Mme de Guermantes had made herself, with no ulterior motive, to gratify no ambition, descend to the level of people whom she would never know, had the praiseworthy character, almost touching in its uselessness, of a knowledge of Phoenician antiquities in a politician or a doctor.

“I might have been able to show you a very fine one,” Mme de Guermantes said to me amiably, still speaking of Hals, “the finest in existence, some people say, which was left to me by a German cousin. Unfortunately, it turned out to be ‘enfeoffed’ in the castle—you don’t know the expression? nor do I,” she added, with her fondness for jokes (which made her, she thought, seem modern) at the expense of the old customs to which nevertheless she was unconsciously but fiercely attached. “I’m glad you have seen my Elstirs, but I must admit I should have been a great deal more glad if I could have done you the honours of my Hals, of that ‘enfeoffed’ picture.”

“I know the one,” said Prince Von, “it’s the Grand Duke of Hesse’s Hals.”

“Quite so; his brother married my sister,” said M. de Guermantes, “and his mother and Oriane’s were first cousins as well.”

“But so far as M. Elstir is concerned,” the Prince went on, “I shall take the liberty of saying, without having any opinion of his work, which I do not know, that the hatred with which the Kaiser pursues him ought not, it seems to me, to be counted against him. The Kaiser is a man of marvellous intelligence.”

“Yes, I’ve met him at dinner twice, once at my aunt Sagan’s and once at my aunt Radziwill’s, and I must say I found him quite unusual. I didn’t find him at all simple! But there’s something amusing about him, something ‘forced’ ” (she detached the word) “like a green carnation, that is to say a thing that surprises me and doesn’t please me enormously, a thing it’s surprising that anyone should have been able to create but which I feel would have been just as well left uncreated. I trust I’m not shocking you?”

“The Kaiser is a man of astounding intelligence,” resumed the Prince, “he is passionately fond of the arts, he has for works of art a taste that is practically infallible, he never makes a mistake: if a thing is good he spots it at once and takes a dislike to it. If he detests anything, there can be no more doubt about it, the thing is excellent.”

Everyone smiled.

“You set my mind at rest,” said the Duchess.

“I should be inclined to compare the Kaiser,” went on the Prince, who, not knowing how to pronounce the word archaeologist (that is to say, as though it were spelt with a “k”), never missed an opportunity of using it, “to an old archaeologist” (but the Prince said “arsheologist”) “we have in Berlin. If you put him in front of a genuine Assyrian antique, he weeps. But if it is a modern fake, if it is not really old, he does not weep. And so, when they want to know whether an arsheological piece is really old, they take it to the old arsheologist. If he weeps, they buy the piece for the Museum. If his eyes remain dry, they send it back to the dealer, and prosecute him for fraud. Well, every time I dine at Potsdam, if the Kaiser says to me of a play: ‘Prince, you must see it, it’s a work of genius,’ I make a note not to go to it; and when I hear him fulminating against an exhibition, I rush to see it at the first possible opportunity.”

“Norpois is in favour of an Anglo-French understanding, isn’t he?” said M. de Guermantes.

“What good would that do you?” asked Prince Von, who could not endure the English, with an air at once irritated and crafty. “The English are so schtubid. I know, of course, that it would not be as soldiers that they would help you. But one can judge them, all the same, by the schtubidity of their generals. A friend of mine was talking the other day to Botha, you know, the Boer leader.