In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV_ Sodom and Gomorrah - Marcel Proust [193]
“He knows too much, he’s boring us,” the Princess gurgled softly.
“There are so many other names that interest me, but I can’t ask you everything at once.” And turning to Cottard, “Is Madame Putbus here?” I asked him.
“No, thank heaven,” replied Mme Verdurin, who had overheard my question, “I’ve managed to divert her holiday plans towards Venice, so we are rid of her for this year.”
“I shall myself be entitled presently to two trees,” said M. de Charlus, “for I have more or less taken a little house between Saint-Martin-du-Chêne and Saint-Pierredes-Ifs.”
“But that’s quite close to here. I hope you’ll come over often with Charlie Morel. You have only to come to an arrangement with our little group about the trains, you’re just a stone’s throw from Doncières,” said Mme Verdurin, who hated people not coming by the same train and at the hours when she sent carriages to meet them. She knew how stiff the climb was to La Raspelière, even by the zigzag path behind Féterne which was half an hour longer; she was afraid that those of her guests who came on their own might not find carriages to take them, or even, having in reality stayed away, might plead the excuse that they had not found a carriage at Douville-Féterne, and had not felt strong enough to make so stiff a climb on foot. To this invitation M. de Charlus responded with a silent nod.
“I bet he’s an awkward customer, he’s got a very starchy look,” the Doctor whispered to Ski, for, having remained very unassuming in spite of a surface-dressing of arrogance, he made no attempt to conceal the fact that Charlus was snubbing him. “He’s obviously unaware that at all the fashionable spas, and even in Paris, in all the clinics, the physicians, who naturally regard me as the ‘big boss,’ make it a point of honour to introduce me to all the noblemen present, not that they need to be asked twice. It makes my stay at the spas quite enjoyable,” he added lightly. “Indeed at Doncières the medical officer of the regiment, who is the doctor who attends the Colonel, invited me to lunch to meet him, saying that I was fully entitled to dine with the General. And that general is a Monsieur de something. I don’t know whether his title-deeds are more or less ancient than those of this Baron.”
“Don’t you worry about him, his is a very humble coronet,” replied Ski in an undertone, and he added something indistinct including a word of which I caught only the last syllable, -ast, being engaged in listening to what Brichot was saying to M. de Charlus.
“No, as to that, I’m sorry to have to tell you, you have probably one tree only, for if Saint-Martin-du-Chêne is obviously Sanctus Martinus juxta quercum, on the other hand the word if [yew] may be simply the root ave, eve, which means moist, as in Aveyron, Lodève, Yvette, and which you see survive in our kitchen sinks (éviers). It is the word eau which in Breton is represented by ster, Stermaria, Sterlaer, Sterbouest, Ster-en-Dreuchen.”
I did not hear the rest, for whatever the pleasure I might feel on hearing again the name Stermaria, I could not help listening to Cottard, near whom I was seated, as he murmured to Ski: “Really! I didn’t know that. So he’s a gentleman who knows how to cope in life. He’s one of the happy band, is he? And yet he hasn’t got rings of fat round his eyes. I shall have to watch out for my feet under the table or he might take a fancy to me. But I’m not at all surprised. I’m used to seeing noblemen in the showers in their birthday suits, they’re all more or less degenerates. I don’t talk to them, because after all I’m in an official position and it might do me harm. But they know quite well who I am.”
Saniette, who had been scared by Brichot’s interpellation, was beginning to breathe again, like a man who is afraid of storms when he finds that the lightning has not been followed by any sound of thunder, when he heard M. Verdurin interrogate him, fastening upon him a stare which did not let go of the poor man until he had finished speaking,