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By Root 1750 0

come down to it,” said the Duchess, fearful lest the conversation should turn to philanthropy, which she found boring. “How can one do good to people one doesn’t understand? And besides, one doesn’t know which people to do good to—one tries to do good to the wrong people. That’s what is so frightful. But to get back to Gilbert and his being shocked at your visiting the Iénas, Your Highness has far too much sense to let her actions be governed . . .”

Additional passage of dialogue in the manuscript:

“I think he’s mainly preoccupied by a Villeparisis-Norpois rapprochement,” said the Duchess, in order to change the subject.

“But is there any room for a closer rapprochement in that direction?” asked the Prince. “I thought they were already very close.”

“Good heavens!” said the Duchess with a gesture of alarm at the image of coupling which the Prince conjured up for her, “I believe at any rate that they have been. But I’m told, ridiculous though it may seem, that my aunt would like to marry him. No, seriously, it seems incredible, but I gather she’s the one who wants it, and he doesn’t because she already bores him enough as it is. Really, she can’t have any sense of the ridiculous. Why, I wonder, when one has so seldom ‘resisted’ in the course of one’s life, should one suddenly feel the need to sanction a liaison with matrimony, after dispensing with it on so many other occasions? There really isn’t much point in having caused every door to be closed to one if one cannot bear the idea of a union remaining illicit, especially when it’s as respectable as this one, and, we all hope, as platonic.”

Synopsis

PART ONE

Move into a new apartment in a wing of the Hôtel de Guermantes. Poetic dreams conjured up by the name Guermantes dispelled one by one.

Françoise holds court at lunch-time below stairs. Jupien; his niece.

The name Guermantes, having shed its feudal connotations, now offers my imagination a new mystery, that of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The Guermantes’ doormat: threshold of the Faubourg.

A gala evening at the Opéra. Berma in Phèdre once more. The Prince of Saxony?. The Faubourg Saint-Germain in their boxes. The Princesse de Guermantes’s baignoire: the water-goddesses and the bearded tritons. Berma in a modern piece. Berma and Elstir. The Princesse and the Duchesse de Guermantes. Mme de Cambremer.

My stratagems for seeing the Duchesse de Guermantes out walking; her different faces. Françoise’s impenetrable feelings. I decide to visit Saint-Loup in his garrison, hoping to approach the Duchess through him.

Doncières. The cavalry barracks. The Captain, the Prince de Borodino. Saint-Loup’s room. Noises and silence. My Doncières hotel. The world of sleep. Field manoeuvres. Saint-Loup’s popularity. The streets of Doncières in the evening. Dinner at Saint-Loup’s pension. I ask him to speak to his aunt about me. He wants me to shine in front of his friends. He denies the rumour of his engagement to Mlle d’Ambresac. Major Duroc. The Army and the Dreyfus case. Aesthetics of the military art. Saint-Loup and his mistress. Captain deBorodino and his barber. My grandmother’s voice on the telephone. Saint-Loup’s strange salute.

Return to Paris. I discover how much my grandmother has changed as a result of her illness. End of winter. Mme de Guermantes in lighter dresses. Work-plans, constantly postponed. Mme Sazerat a Dreyfusard. Legrandin’s professed hatred of society. Visit to the suburbs to meet Saint-Loup’s mistress. I recognise her as “Rachel when from the Lord”. Pear-trees in blossom. Jealous scenes in the restaurant. In the theatre after lunch. Rachel’s cruelty. Her transformation on stage. Rachel and the dancer. Saint-Loup and the journalist. Saint-Loup and the passionate stranger.

An afternoon party at Mme de Villeparisis’s. Her social decline; her literary qualities. The social kaleidoscope and the Dreyfus case. Mme de Villeparisis’s Memoirs. The three Parcae. The portrait of the Duchesse de Montmorency. Legrandin in society. Mme de Guermantes’s face and her conversation lack the mysterious