In Search of Lost Time, Volume V_ The Captive, the Fugitive - Marcel Proust [172]
“But did Swann ever know that you had enjoyed her favours?”
“What an idea! Confess such a thing to Charles! It’s enough to make one’s hair stand on end. Why, my dear fellow, he would have killed me on the spot, he was as jealous as a tiger. Any more than I ever confessed to Odette, not that she would have minded in the least, that … But you mustn’t make my tongue run away with me. And the joke of it is that it was she who fired a revolver at him, and nearly hit me. Oh! I used to have a fine time with that couple; and naturally it was I who was obliged to act as his second against d’Osmond, who never forgave me. D’Osmond had carried off Odette, and Swann, to console himself, had taken as his mistress, or make-believe mistress, Odette’s sister. But really you mustn’t start making me tell you Swann’s story, or we should be here all night—nobody knows more about it than I do. It was I who used to take Odette out when she didn’t want to see Charles. It was all the more awkward for me as I have a very close kinsman who bears the name Crécy, without of course having any sort of right to it, but still he was none too well pleased. For she went by the name of Odette de Crécy, as she perfectly well could, being merely separated from a Crécy whose wife she still was—an extremely authentic one, he, a most estimable gentleman out of whom she had drained his last farthing. But why should I have to tell you about this Crécy? I’ve seen you with him on the twister, you used to have him to dinner at Balbec. He must have needed it, poor fellow, for he lived on a tiny allowance that Swann made him, and I’m very much afraid that, since my friend’s death, that income must have stopped altogether. What I do not understand,” M. de Charlus said to me, “is that, since you used often to go to Charles’s, you didn’t ask me this evening to present you to the Queen of Naples. In fact I can see that you’re not interested in people as curiosities, and that always surprises me in someone who knew Swann, in whom that sort of interest was so highly developed that it’s impossible to say whether it was I who initiated him in these matters or he me. It surprises me as much as if I met a person who had known Whistler and remained ignorant of what is meant by taste. However, it was chiefly important for Morel to meet her. He was passionately keen to as well, for he’s nothing if not intelligent. It’s a nuisance that she’s gone. However, I shall effect the conjunction one of these days. It’s inevitable that he’ll get to know her. The only possible obstacle would be if she were to die in the night. Well, it’s to be hoped that that won’t happen.”
All of a sudden Brichot, who was still suffering from the shock of the proportion “three out of ten” which M. de Charlus had revealed to him, and had continued to pursue the idea all this time, burst out with an abruptness which was reminiscent of an examining magistrate seeking to make a prisoner confess but which was in reality the result of the Professor’s desire to appear perspicacious and of the misgivings that he felt about launching so grave an accusation: “Isn’t Ski like that?” he inquired of M. de Charlus with a sombre air. He had chosen Ski in order to show off his alleged intuitive powers, telling himself that since there were only three innocents in every ten, he ran little risk of being mistaken if he named Ski, who seemed to him a trifle odd, suffered from insomnia, used scent, in short was not entirely normal.
“But not in the least!” exclaimed the Baron with bitter, dogmatic, exasperated irony. “What you say is so wrong, so absurd, so wide of the mark! Ski is like that precisely to the people who know nothing about it. If he was, he wouldn’t look so like it, be it said without any intention to criticise, for he has a certain charm, indeed I find there’s something very engaging about him.”
“But give us a few names, then,” Brichot