In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV_ Sodom and Gomorrah - Marcel Proust [39]
At length M. de Vaugoubert spoke, otherwise than with his eyes. “Who knows,” he said sadly, “whether in the country where I live the same thing does not exist also?” “It is probable,” replied M. de Charlus, “starting with King Theodosius, though I don’t know anything definite about him.” “Oh, dear, no! not in the least!” “Then he has no right to look it so completely. Besides, he has all the little tricks. He has that ‘my dear’ manner, which I detest more than anything in the world. I should never dare to be seen walking in the street with him. Anyhow, you must know him for what he is, it’s common knowledge.” “You’re entirely mistaken about him. In any case he’s quite charming. On the day the agreement with France was signed, the King embraced me. I’ve never been so moved.” “That was the moment to tell him what you wanted.” “Oh, good heavens! What an idea! If he were even to suspect such a thing! But I have no fear in that direction.” Words which I heard, for I was standing close by, and which made me recite to myself: “The King unto this day knows not who I am, and this secret keeps my tongue still enchained.”
This dialogue, half mute, half spoken, had lasted only a few moments, and I had barely entered the first of the drawing-rooms with the Duchesse de Guermantes, when a little dark lady, extremely pretty, stopped her:
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. D’Annunzio saw you from a box in the theatre, and he wrote the Princesse de T—— a letter in which he says that he never saw anything so lovely. He would give his life for ten minutes’ conversation with you. In any case, even if you can’t or won’t, the letter is in my possession. You must fix a day to come and see me. There are some secrets which I cannot tell you here. I see you don’t remember me,” she added, turning to me; “I met you at the Princesse de Parme’s” (where I had never been). “The Emperor of Russia is anxious for your father to be sent to Petersburg. If you could come in on Tuesday, Isvolski himself will be there, and he’ll talk to you about it. I have a present for you, my dear,” she went on, turning back to the Duchess, “which I should not dream of giving to anyone but you. The manuscripts of three of Ibsen’s plays, which he sent to me by his old attendant. I shall keep one and give you the other two.”
The Duc de Guermantes was not overpleased by these offers. Uncertain whether Ibsen or D’Annunzio were dead or alive, he could see in his mind’s eye a tribe of authors and playwrights coming to call upon his wife and putting her in their works. People in society are too apt to think of a book as a sort of cube one side of which has been removed, so that the author can at once “put in” the people he meets. This is obviously rather underhand, and writers are a pretty low class. True, it’s not a bad thing to meet them once in a way, for thanks to them, when one reads a book or an article, one “gets to know the inside story,” one “sees people in their true colours.” On the whole, though, the wisest thing is to stick to dead authors. M. de Guermantes considered “perfectly decent” only the gentleman who did the funeral notices in the Gaulois. He, at any rate, was content to include M. de Guermantes at the head of the list of people present “among others” at funerals at which the Duke had given his name. When he preferred that his name should not appear, instead of giving it, he sent a letter of condolence to the relatives of the deceased, assuring them of his deep and heartfelt sympathy. If, then, the family inserted an announcement in the paper: “Among the letters received, we may mention one from the Duc de Guermantes,” etc., this was the fault not of the ink-slinger but of the son, brother, father of the deceased whom the Duke thereupon denounced as upstarts, and with whom