In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV_ Sodom and Gomorrah - Marcel Proust [73]
“You won’t come with us to the ball?” he asked me. “I can lend you a Venetian cloak and I know someone who will be deucedly glad to see you there—Oriane for one, that goes without saying—but the Princesse de Parme. She never tires of singing your praises, and swears by you. It’s lucky for you—since she’s a trifle mature—that she is a model of virtue. Otherwise she would certainly have taken you on as a cicisbeo, as they used to say in my young days, a sort of cavaliere servente.”
I was interested not in the ball but in my rendezvous with Albertine. And so I refused. The carriage had stopped, the footman was shouting for the gate to be opened, the horses pawed the ground until it was flung apart and the carriage passed into the courtyard. “So long,” said the Duke. “I’ve sometimes regretted living so close to Marie,” the Duchess said to me, “because although I’m very fond of her, I’m not quite so fond of her company. But I’ve never regretted it so much as tonight, since it has allowed me so little of yours.” “Come, Oriane, no speechmaking.”
The Duchess would have liked me to come inside for a minute. She laughed heartily, as did the Duke, when I said that I could not because I was expecting a girl to call at any moment. “You choose a funny time to receive visitors,” she said to me.
“Come along, my sweet, there’s no time to lose,” said M. de Guermantes to his wife. “It’s a quarter to twelve, and time we were dressed . . .” He came into collision, outside his front door which they were grimly guarding, with the two ladies with the walking-sticks, who had not been afraid to descend at dead of night from their mountain-top to prevent a scandal. “Basin, we felt we must warn you, in case you were seen at that ball: poor Amanien has just died, an hour ago.” The Duke was momentarily dismayed. He saw the famous ball collapsing in ruins for him now that these accursed mountaineers had informed him of the death of M. d’Osmond. But he quickly recovered himself and flung at his cousins a retort which reflected, together with his determination not to forgo a pleasure, his incapacity to assimilate exactly the niceties of the French language: “He’s dead! No, no, they’re exaggerating, they’re exaggerating!” And without giving a further thought to his two relatives who, armed with their alpenstocks, prepared to make their nocturnal ascent, he fired off a string of questions at his valet:
“Are you sure my helmet has come?” “Yes, Monsieur le Duc.” “You’re sure there’s a hole in it I can breathe through? I don’t want to be suffocated, damn it!” “Yes, Monsieur le Duc.” “Oh, hell and damnation, everything’s going wrong this evening. Oriane, I forgot to ask Babal whether the shoes with pointed toes were for you!” “But, my dear, the dresser from the Opéra-Comique is here, he will tell us. I don’t see how they could go with your spurs.” “Let’s go and find the dresser,” said the Duke. “Good-bye, my boy, I’d ask you to come in while we are trying on our costumes—it would amuse you. But we should only waste time talking, it’s nearly midnight and we mustn’t be late in getting there or we shall spoil the show.”
I too was in a hurry to get away from M. and Mme de Guermantes as quickly as possible. Phèdre finished at about half past eleven. Albertine must have arrived by now. I went straight to Françoise: “Is Mlle Albertine here?” “No one has called.”
Good God, did that mean that no one would call! I was in torment, Albertine’s visit seeming to me now all the more desirable the less certain it had become.
Françoise was upset too, but for quite a different reason. She had just installed her daughter at the table for a succulent repast. But, on hearing me come in, and seeing that there was no time to whip away the dishes and put out needles and thread as though it were a work party and not a supper party: “She’s just had a spoonful