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By Root 1911 0

classes in general but more particularly to the little nucleus. To be sure, if Mme Verdurin intercepted between a newcomer and one of the faithful a whispered remark which might let it be supposed that they knew each other or wished to become better acquainted (“On Friday, then, at So-and-so’s,” or “Come to the studio any day you like. I’m always there until five o’clock, I shall look forward to seeing you”), she would become restless and excited, assuming that the newcomer occupied a “position” which would make him a brilliant recruit to the little clan, and while pretending not to have heard anything, and preserving in her fine eyes, ringed with dark shadows by addiction to Debussy more than they would have been by addiction to cocaine, the exhausted look induced by musical intoxication alone, would revolve nevertheless behind her splendid brow, bulging with all those quartets and the resultant headaches, thoughts which were not exclusively polyphonic; and unable to contain herself any longer, unable to postpone the injection for another instant, would fling herself upon the speakers, draw them apart, and say to the newcomer, pointing to the “faithful” one: “You wouldn’t care to come and dine with him, next Saturday, shall we say, or any day you like, with some really nice people? Don’t speak too loud, as I don’t want to invite all this mob” (a term used to designate for five minutes the little nucleus, disdained for the moment in favour of the newcomer in whom so many hopes were placed).

But this need for new enthusiasms, and also for bringing people together, had its reverse side. Assiduous attendance at their Wednesdays aroused in the Verdurins an opposite tendency. This was the desire to set people at odds, to estrange them from one another. It had been strengthened, had almost been carried to a frenzy during the months spent at La Raspelière, where they were all together morning, noon and night. M. Verdurin would go out of his way to catch someone out, to spin webs in which he might hand over to his spider mate some innocent fly. Failing a grievance, he would try ridicule. As soon as one of the faithful had been out of the house for half an hour, the Verdurins would make fun of him in front of the others, would feign surprise that their guests had not noticed how his teeth were never clean, or how on the contrary he had a mania for brushing them twenty times a day. If anyone took the liberty of opening a window, this want of breeding would cause host and hostess to exchange a glance of disgust. A moment later Mme Verdurin would ask for a shawl, which gave M. Verdurin an excuse for saying in a tone of fury: “No, I shall close the window. I wonder who had the impertinence to open it,” in the hearing of the guilty wretch who blushed to the roots of his hair. You were rebuked indirectly for the quantity of wine you had drunk. “Doesn’t it make you ill? It’s all right for navvies!” If two of the faithful went for walks together without first obtaining permission from the Mistress, these walks were the subject of endless comment, however innocent they might be. Those of M. de Charlus with Morel were not innocent. It was only the fact that M. de Charlus was not staying at La Raspelière (because of Morel’s garrison life) that retarded the hour of satiety, disgust, nausea. That hour was, however, about to strike.

Mme Verdurin was furious and determined to “enlighten” Morel as to the ridiculous and detestable role that M. de Charlus was making him play. “I must add,” she went on (for when she felt that she owed someone a debt of gratitude which would weigh upon her, and was unable to rid herself of it by killing him, she would discover a serious defect in him which would honourably dispense her from showing her gratitude), “I must add that he gives himself airs in my house which I do not at all like.” The truth was that Mme Verdurin had another reason more serious than Morel’s refusal to play at her friends’ party for resentment against M. de Charlus. The latter, highly conscious of the honour he was doing the Mistress by