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By Root 1482 0

cultivated his mind; he had acquired increasing authority but no experience; he took the word “honoured” in its literal sense and was at once flattered by it because he was vain, and distressed because he had a kind heart. “That poor de Charlus,” he said to his wife that evening, “he made me feel sorry for him when he said he was honoured to travel with us. One feels, poor devil, that he knows nobody, that he has to humble himself.”

But soon, without any need to be guided by the charitable Mme Cottard, the faithful had succeeded in overcoming the qualms which they had all more or less felt at first on finding themselves in the company of M. de Charlus. No doubt in his presence they were incessantly reminded of Ski’s revelations, and conscious of the sexual abnormality embodied in their travelling companion. But this abnormality itself had a sort of attraction for them. It gave to the Baron’s conversation, remarkable in itself but in ways which they could scarcely appreciate, a savour which, they felt, made the most interesting conversation, even Brichot’s, appear slightly insipid in comparison. From the very outset, moreover, they had been pleased to admit that he was intelligent. “Genius is sometimes akin to madness,” the Doctor declared, and when the Princess, athirst for knowledge, questioned him further, said not another word, this axiom being all that he knew about genius and in any case seeming to him less demonstrable than everything relating to typhoid and arthritis. And as he had become proud and remained ill-bred: “No questions, Princess, do not interrogate me, I’m at the seaside for a rest. Besides, you wouldn’t understand, you know nothing about medicine.” And the Princess apologised and held her peace, deciding that Cottard was a charming man and realising that celebrities were not always approachable. In this initial period, then, they had ended by finding M. de Charlus intelligent in spite of his vice (or what is generally so named). Now it was, quite unconsciously, because of that vice that they found him more intelligent than others. The simplest maxims to which, adroitly provoked by the sculptor or the scholar, M. de Charlus gave utterance concerning love, jealousy, beauty, because of the strange, secret, refined and monstrous experience on which they were based, assumed for the faithful that charm of unfamiliarity with which a psychology analogous to that which our own dramatic literature has offered us from time immemorial is clothed in a Russian or Japanese play performed by native actors. They might still venture, when he was not listening, upon a malicious witticism at his expense. “Oh!” the sculptor would whisper, seeing a young railwayman with the sweeping eyelashes of a dancing gift at whom M. de Charlus could not help staring, “if the Baron begins making eyes at the conductor, we shall never get there, the train will start going backwards. Just look at the way he’s staring at him: this isn’t a puffer-train but a poofter-train.” But when all was said, if M. de Charlus did not appear, they were almost disappointed to be travelling only with people who were just like everybody else, and not to have with them this painted, paunchy, tightly-buttoned personage, reminiscent of a box of exotic and dubious origin exhaling a curious odour of fruits the mere thought of tasting which would turn the stomach. From this point of view, the faithful of the masculine sex enjoyed a keener satisfaction in the short stage of the journey between Saint-Martin-du-Chêne, where M. de Charlus got in, and Doncières, the station at which Morel joined the party. For so long as the violinist was not there (and provided that the ladies and Albertine, keeping to themselves so as not to inhibit the conversation, were out of hearing), M. de Charlus made no attempt to appear to be avoiding certain subjects and did not hesitate to speak of “what it is customary to call immoral practices.” Albertine could not hamper him, for she was always with the ladies, like a well-brought-up girl who does not wish her presence to restrict the