In Search of Lost Time, Volume III_ The Guermantes Way - Marcel Proust [323]
While he was speaking, my desire to persuade M. de Charlus that I had never spoken or heard anyone else speak ill of him had given place to a wild rage, provoked by the words which, to my mind, were dictated to him solely by his colossal pride. Perhaps they were indeed the effect, in part at any rate, of this pride. Almost all the rest sprang from a feeling of which I was then still ignorant, and for which I could not therefore be blamed for not making due allowance. Failing this unknown element, I might, had I remembered the words of Mme de Guermantes, have been tempted to assume a trace of madness in his pride. But at that moment the idea of madness never even entered my head. There was in him, in my view, only pride, while in me there was only fury. This fury (at the moment when M. de Charlus ceased to shout, in order to refer to his august toes, with a majesty that was accompanied by a grimace, a vomit of disgust at his obscure blasphemers), this fury could contain itself no longer. I felt a compulsive desire to strike something, and, a lingering trace of discernment making me respect the person of a man so much older than myself, and even, in view of their dignity as works of art, the pieces of German porcelain that were grouped around him, I seized the Baron’s new silk hat, flung it to the ground, trampled it, picked it up again, began blindly pulling it to pieces, wrenched off the brim, tore the crown in two, heedless of the continuing vociferations of M. de Charlus, and, crossing the room in order to leave, opened the door. To my intense astonishment, two footmen were standing one on either side of it, who moved slowly away, so as to appear only to have been casually passing in the course of their duty. (I afterwards learned their names; one was called Burnier, the other Charmel.) I was not taken in for a moment by the explanation which their leisurely gait seemed to offer me. It was highly improbable; three others appeared to me to be less so: one was that the Baron sometimes entertained guests against whom, in case he happened to need assistance (but why?), he deemed it necessary to keep reinforcements posted close at hand; the second was that, drawn by curiosity, they had stopped to listen at the keyhole, not thinking that I should come out so quickly; the third, that, the whole of the scene which M. de Charlus had made having been a piece of play-acting rehearsed in advance, he had himself told them to listen, from a love of spectacle combined, perhaps, with a nunc erudimini, “Be wise now,” by which everyone would profit.
My anger had not calmed that of M. de Charlus, and my departure from the room seemed to cause him acute distress; he called me back, shouted to his servants to stop me, and finally, forgetting that a moment earlier, when he spoke of his “august toes,” he had thought to make me a witness of his own deification, came running after me at full speed, overtook me in the hall, and stood barring the door. “Come, now,” he said, “don’t be childish; come back for a minute; he that loveth well chasteneth well, and if I have chastened you well it is because I love you well.” My anger had subsided; I let the word “chasten” pass and followed the Baron who, summoning a footman, ordered him without a trace of self-consciousness to clear away the remains of the shattered hat, which was replaced by another.
“If you will tell me, Monsieur, who it is that has treacherously maligned me,” I said to M. de Charlus, “I will stay here to learn his name and to confute the impostor.”
“Who? Do you not know? Do you retain no memory of the things you say? Do you think that the people who are so good as to inform me of such things do not begin by demanding secrecy? And do you imagine that I’m going to betray a person to