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By Root 1655 0

a glorious stained-glass window; and towards the possessor of this treasure, towards the man who, inside his rough-hewn house, on the main street, closeted like an astrologer, sat questioning one of those mirrors of the world which Elstir’s pictures were, and who had perhaps bought it for many thousands of francs, I felt myself borne by that instinctive sympathy which joins the very hearts, the inmost natures of those who think alike upon a vital subject. Now three important works by my favourite painter were described in one of these articles as belonging to Mme de Guermantes. So that it was on the whole quite sincerely that, on the evening on which Saint-Loup told me of his lady’s projected visit to Bruges, I was able, during dinner, in front of his friends, to say to him casually, as though on the spur of the moment:

“I say, if you don’t mind, just one last word on the subject of the lady we were speaking about. You remember Elstir, the painter I met at Balbec?”

“Why, of course I do.”

“You remember how much I admired his work?”

“I do, very well; and the letter we sent him.”

“Well, one of the reasons—not one of the chief reasons, an incidental reason—why I should like to meet the said lady—you do know who I mean, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. All these digressions!”

“Is that she has in her house at least one very fine picture by Elstir.”

“Really, I never knew that.”

“Elstir will probably be at Balbec at Easter; you know he now spends almost the entire year on that coast. I should very much like to have seen this picture before I leave Paris. I don’t know whether you’re on sufficiently intimate terms with your aunt: but couldn’t you manage, somehow, giving her so good an impression of me that she won’t refuse, to ask her to let me come and see the picture without you, since you won’t be there?”

“Certainly. I’ll answer for her; leave it to me.”

“Oh, Robert, I do like you.”

“It’s very nice of you to like me, but it would be equally nice if you were to call me tu, as you promised, and as you began to do.”

“I hope it’s not your departure that you two are plotting together,” one of Robert’s friends said to me. “You know, if Saint-Loup does go on leave, it needn’t make any difference, we shall still be here. It will be less amusing for you, perhaps, but we’ll do all we can to make you forget his absence!”

The fact was that, just when it had been generally assumed that Robert’s mistress would be going to Bruges alone, the news came that Captain de Borodino, hitherto obdurate in his refusal, had given authority for Sergeant Saint-Loup to proceed on long leave to Bruges. What had happened was this. The Prince, extremely proud of his luxuriant head of hair, was an assiduous customer of the principal hairdresser in the town, who had started life as an apprentice to Napoleon III’s barber. Captain de Borodino was on the best of terms with the hairdresser, being, in spite of his majestic airs, extremely simple in his dealings with his inferiors. But the hairdresser, through whose books the Prince’s account had been running without payment for at least five years, swollen no less by bottles of “Portugal” and “Eau des Souverains,” curlingtongs, razors, and strops, than by the ordinary charges for shampooing, haircutting and the like, had a greater respect for Saint-Loup, who always paid on the nail and kept several carriages and saddle-horses. Having learned of Saint-Loup’s vexation at not being able to go with his mistress, he had spoken warmly about it to the Prince at a moment when he was trussed up in a white surplice with his head held firmly over the back of the chair and his throat menaced by a razor. This account of a young man’s amatory adventures won from the princely Captain a smile of Bonapartist indulgence. It is hardly probable that he thought of his unpaid bill, but the barber’s recommendation inclined him to good humour as much as a duke’s would have inclined him to bad. While his chin was still smothered in soap, the leave was promised and the warrant was signed that evening. As for the hairdresser, who was