In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV_ Sodom and Gomorrah - Marcel Proust [250]
What surprised me greatly when we started off for our walk was that Morel, who was coming with us and was to play his violin under the trees, said to me: “Listen, I have a sore arm, and I don’t want to say anything about it to Mme Verdurin, but you might ask her to send for one of her footmen, Howsler for instance, to carry my things.”
“I think someone else would be more suitable,” I replied. “He will be wanted here for dinner.”
A look of anger flitted across Morel’s face. “No, I’m not going to entrust my violin to any Tom, Dick or Harry.”
I realised later on his reason for this choice. Howsler was the beloved brother of the young coachman, and, if he had been left at home, might have gone to his rescue. During our walk, dropping his voice so that the elder Howsler should not overhear: “What a good fellow he is,” said Morel. “So is his brother, for that matter. If he hadn’t that fatal habit of drinking . . .”
“Did you say drinking?” said Mme Verdurin, turning pale at the idea of having a coachman who drank.
“You’ve never noticed it? I always say to myself it’s a miracle that he’s never had an accident while he’s been driving you.”
“Does he drive anyone else, then?”
“You can easily see how many spills he’s had, his face today is a mass of bruises. I don’t know how he’s escaped being killed, he’s broken his shafts.”
“I haven’t seen him today,” said Mme Verdurin, trembling at the thought of what might have happened to her, “you appal me.”
She tried to cut short the walk so as to return at once, but Morel chose an air by Bach with endless variations to keep her away from the house. As soon as we got back she went to the stable, saw the new shafts and Howsler streaming with blood. She was on the point of telling him without more ado that she did not require a coachman any longer, and of paying him his wages, but of his own accord, not wishing to accuse his fellow-servants, to whose animosity he attributed retrospectively the theft of all his saddlery, and seeing that further patience would only end in his being left for dead on the ground, he asked leave to go at once, which settled matters. The chauffeur began his duties next day and, later on, Mme Verdurin (who had been obliged to engage another) was so well satisfied with him that she recommended him to me warmly as a man of the utmost reliability. I, knowing nothing of all this, engaged him by the day in Paris. But I am anticipating events; I shall come to all this when I reach the story of Albertine. At the present moment we are at La Raspelière, where I have just come to dine for the first time with my beloved, and M. de Charlus with Morel, the alleged son of a “steward” who drew a fixed salary of thirty thousand francs annually, kept his own carriage, and had any number of subordinate officials, gardeners, bailiffs and farmers at his beck and call. But, since I have so far anticipated, I do not wish to leave the reader under the impression that Morel was entirely wicked. He was, rather, a mass of contradictions, capable on certain days of genuine kindness.
I was naturally greatly surprised to hear that the coachman had been dismissed, and even more surprised when I recognised his successor as the chauffeur who had been driving Albertine and myself in his car. But he poured out to me a complicated story, according to which he was supposed to have been summoned back to Paris, whence an order had come for him to go to the Verdurins, and I did not doubt his word for an instant. The coachman’s dismissal was the cause of Morel’s talking to me for a few minutes, to express his regret at the departure of that worthy fellow. In fact, even apart from the moments when I was alone and he literally bounded towards me beaming with joy, Morel, seeing that everybody made much of me at La Raspelière and feeling that he was deliberately cutting