In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV_ Sodom and Gomorrah - Marcel Proust [211]
“Play a trump,” M. de Charlus said to Morel with a delighted air.
“A trump, here goes,” said the violinist.
“You ought to have declared your king first,” said M. de Charlus, “you’re not paying attention to the game, but how well you play!”
“I have the king,” said Morel.
“He’s a fine man,” replied the Professor.
“What’s that thing up there with the sticks?” asked Mme Verdurin, drawing M. de Cambremer’s attention to a superb escutcheon carved over the mantelpiece. “Are they your arms?” she added with sarcastic scorn.
“No, they’re not ours,” replied M. de Cambremer. “We bear barry of five, embattled counterembattled or and gules, as many trefoils countercharged. No, those are the arms of the Arrachepels, who were not of our stock, but from whom we inherited the house, and nobody of our line has ever made any changes here.” (“That’s one in the eye for her,” muttered Mme de Cambremer.) “The Arrachepels (formerly Pelvilains, we are told) bore or five piles couped in base gules. When they allied themselves with the Féterne family, their blazon changed, but remained cantoned within twenty cross crosslets fitchee in base or, a dexter canton ermine. My great-grandmother was a d’Arrachepel or de Rachepel, whichever you like, for both forms are found in the old charters,” continued M. de Cambremer, blushing deeply, for only then did the idea for which his wife had given him credit occur to him, and he was afraid that Mme Verdurin might have applied to herself words which had in no way been aimed at her. “History relates that in the eleventh century the first Arrachepel, Macé, known as Pelvilain, showed a special aptitude, in siege warfare, in tearing up piles. Whence the nickname Arrachepel under which he was ennobled, and the piles which you see persisting through the centuries in their arms. These are the piles which, to render fortifications more impregnable, used to be driven, bedded, if you will pardon the expression, into the ground in front of them, and fastened together laterally. They are what you quite rightly called sticks, though they had nothing to do with the floating sticks of our good La Fontaine. For they were supposed to render a stronghold impregnable. Of course, with our modern artillery, they make one smile. But you must bear in mind that I’m speaking of the eleventh century.”
“Yes, it’s not exactly up-to-date,” said Mme Verdurin, “but the little campanile has character.”
“You have,” said Cottard, “the luck of a fiddlededee,” a word which he regularly repeated to avoid using Molière’s.17 “Do you know why the king of diamonds was invalided out of the army?”
“I shouldn’t mind being in his shoes,” said Morel, who was bored with military service.
“Oh! how unpatriotic!” exclaimed M. de Charlus, who could not refrain from pinching the violinist’s ear.
“You don’t know why the king of diamonds was invalided out of the army?” Cottard pursued, determined to make his joke, “it’s because he has only one eye.”
“You’re up against it, Doctor,” said M. de Cambremer, to show Cottard that he knew who he was.
“This young man is astonishing,” M. de Charlus interrupted naïvely, pointing to Morel. “He plays like a god.”
This observation did not find favour with the Doctor, who replied: “Wait and see. He who laughs last laughs longest.”
“Queen, ace,” Morel announced triumphantly, for fortune was favouring him.
The Doctor bowed his head as though powerless to deny this good fortune, and admitted, spellbound: “That’s beautiful.”
“We’re so pleased to have met M. de Charlus,” said Mme de Cambremer to Mme Verdurin.
“Had you never met him before? He’s rather nice, most unusual, very much of a period” (she would have found it difficult to say which), replied Mme Verdurin with the complacent smile of a connoisseur, a judge and a hostess.
Mme de Cambremer asked me if I was coming to Féterne with Saint-Loup. I could not suppress a cry of admiration when I saw the moon hanging like an orange