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By Root 1825 0

the case with men of some social standing and snobbish to boot, who, in their vanity, sever all their social ties in order to be seen everywhere with a mistress, a demi-mondaine or a lady of tarnished reputation who is no longer received in society but with whom nevertheless it seems to them flattering to be associated) he had arrived at the stage at which self-esteem devotes all its energy to destroying the goals to which it has attained, whether because, under the influence of love, a man sees a sort of glamour, which he is alone in perceiving, in ostentatious relations with athe beloved object, or because, by the waning of social ambitions that have been gratified, and the rising tide of ancillary curiosities that are all the more absorbing for being platonic, the latter have not only reached but have passed the level at which the former found it difficult to sustain themselves.

As for other young men, M. de Charlus found that the existence of Morel was no obstacle to his taste for them, and that indeed his brilliant reputation as a violinist or his growing fame as a composer and journalist might in certain instances provide a bait. If a young composer of pleasing appearance was introduced to the Baron, it was in Morel’s talents that he sought an opportunity of doing the newcomer a favour. “You must,” he would tell him, “bring me some of your work so that Morel can play it at a concert or on tour. There’s so little decent music written for the violin. It’s a godsend to find something new. And abroad they appreciate that sort of thing enormously. Even in the provinces there are little musical societies where they love music with a fervour and intelligence that are quite admirable.” Without any greater sincerity (for all this served only as bait and it was seldom that Morel condescended to fulfil these promises), Bloch having confessed that he was something of a poet (“in my idle momerits,” he had added with the sarcastic laugh with which he would accompany a trite remark when he could think of nothing original), M. de Charlus said to me: “You must tell your young Hebrew, since he writes verse, that he really must bring me some for Morel. For a composer that’s always the stumbling-block, finding something decent to set to music. One might even consider a libretto. It mightn’t be uninteresting, and would acquire a certain value from the distinction of the poet, from my patronage, from a whole concatenation of auxiliary circumstances, among which Morel’s talent would take the chief place. For he’s composing a lot just now, and writing too, and very nicely—I must talk to you about it. As for his talent as an executant (there, as you know, he’s already a real master), you shall see this evening how well the lad plays Vinteuil’s music. He staggers me; at his age, to have such understanding while remaining such a schoolboy, such an urchin! Oh, this evening is only to be a little rehearsal. The big affair is to come off in two or three days. But it will be much more distinguished this evening. And so we’re delighted that you’ve come,” he went on, using the royal plural. “The programme is so magnificent that I’ve advised Mme Verdurin to give two parties: one in a few days’ time, at which she will have all her own acquaintances, the other tonight at which the hostess is, as they say in legal parlance, ‘disseized.’ It is I who have issued the invitations, and I have collected a few people from another sphere, who may be useful to Charlie and whom it will be nice for the Verdurins to meet. It’s all very well, don’t you agree, to have the finest music played by the greatest artists, but the effect of the performance remains muffled, as though in cotton-wool, if the audience is composed of the milliner from across the way and the grocer from round the corner. You know what I think of the intellectual level of society people, but there are certain quite important roles which they can perform, among others the role which in public events devolves upon the press, and which is that of being an organ of dissemination. You understand what