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By Root 1365 0

which the Verdurins were presently to feel in this chauffeur came, unknown to them perhaps, from that source, many of the sorrows of my life in Paris in the following year, much of my trouble over Albertine, would have been avoided; but I had not the slightest suspicion of it. In themselves, M. de Charlus’s excursions by motor-car with Morel were of no direct interest to me. They were confined as a rule to a lunch or dinner in some restaurant along the coast where M. de Charlus was taken for an old and penniless servant and Morel, whose duty it was to pay the bill, for a too kind-hearted gentleman. I report the conversation at one of these meals, which may give an idea of the others. It was in a restaurant of elongated shape at Saint-Mars-le-Vêtu.

“Can’t you get them to remove this thing?” M. de Charlus asked Morel, as though appealing to an intermediary without having to address the staff directly. “This thing” was a vase containing three withered roses with which a well-meaning head waiter had seen fit to decorate the table.

“Yes . . .” said Morel, embarrassed. “Don’t you like roses?”

“My request ought on the contrary to prove that I do like them, since there are no roses here” (Morel appeared surprised) “but as a matter of fact I do not care much for them. I am rather susceptible to names; and whenever a rose is at all beautiful, one learns that it is called Baronne de Rothschild or Maréchale Niel, which casts a chill. Do you like names? Have you found pretty titles for your little concert numbers?”

“There is one that’s called Poème triste.”

“That’s hideous,” replied M. de Charlus in a shrill voice that rang out like a slap in the face. “But I ordered champagne,” he said to the head waiter, who had supposed he was obeying the order by placing by the diners two glasses of sparkling liquid.

“Yes, sir.”

“Take away that filth, which has no connexion with the worst champagne in the world. It is the emetic known as cup, which consists, as a rule, of three rotten strawberries swimming in a mixture of vinegar and soda-water . . . Yes,” he went on, turning again to Morel, “you don’t seem to know what a title is. And even in the interpretation of the things you play best, you seem not to be aware of the mediumistic side.”

“What’s that you say?” asked Morel, who, not having understood one word of what the Baron had said, was afraid that he might be missing something of importance, such as an invitation to lunch. M. de Charlus not having deigned to consider “What’s that you say?” as a question, Morel in consequence received no answer, and thought it best to change the subject and give the conversation a sensual turn.

“I say, look at the little blonde selling the flowers you don’t like; I bet she’s got a little girlfriend. And the old woman dining at the table at the end, too.”

“But how do you know all that?” asked M. de Charlus, amazed at Morel’s intuition.

“Oh! I can spot them in an instant. If we walked together through a crowd, you’d see that I never make a mistake.” And anyone looking at Morel at that moment, with his girlish air enshrined in his masculine beauty, would have understood the obscure divination which marked him out to certain women no less than them to him. He was anxious to supplant Jupien, vaguely desirous of adding to his regular salary the income which, he supposed, the tailor derived from the Baron. “And with gigolos I’m surer still. I could save you from making mistakes. They’ll be having the fair at Balbec soon. We’ll find lots of things there. And in Paris too, you’ll see, you’ll have a fine time.” But the inherited caution of a servant made him give a different turn to the sentence on which he had already embarked. So that M. de Charlus supposed that he was still referring to girls. “Do you know,” said Morel, anxious to excite the Baron’s senses in a fashion which he considered less compromising for himself (although it was actually more immoral), “what I’d like would be to find a girl who was absolutely pure, make her fall in love with me, and take her virginity.”

M. de Charlus could not refrain