In Search of Lost Time, Volume VI_ Time Regained - Marcel Proust [202]
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you,” said the Duchess. “Good heavens, when was it that I saw you last?” “I believe it was at Mme d’Agrigente’s—I was paying a call and I found you there, as I often did.” “But of course, I was constantly going there, my dear boy, since Basin was in love with her in those days. And calling on Basin’s sweetheart of the moment was always where my friends were most likely to find me, because he used to say: ‘I shall expect you to visit her without fail.’ I must admit that there seemed to me to be a slight impropriety in these ‘digestive visits’ on which he used to send me to thank the lady for her entertainment of him. But I quite soon grew accustomed to them. The tiresome thing was, however, that I was obliged to continue my relations with his mistress after he had broken off his own. I was always reminded of the line in Victor Hugo:
Take away the happiness and leave the boredom to me.
Naturally—you remember how the poem goes on—‘I entered smiling none the less,’ but it really was not fair, he ought to have left me the right to be inconstant, for in the end I accumulated so many of his discards that I had not a single afternoon to myself. Still, compared with the present that epoch now seems to me relatively agreeable. That he has started to be unfaithful again is, of course, something that I can only find flattering, it almost makes me feel younger. But I preferred his old way of doing it. Unfortunately, he was so out of practice that he had forgotten how to set about it. However, in spite of it all we are on excellent terms, we talk to each other, we are even quite fond of each other”—this the Duchess added because she was afraid that I might think that she and her husband were completely separated, rather as one says apropos of someone who is desperately ill: “But he is still able to speak, I read to him this morning for an hour.” “I will tell him you are here,” she continued, “he will be delighted to see you.” And she went towards the Duke, who was sitting on a sofa in conversation with a lady. I observed with admiration that, except that his hair was whiter, he had scarcely changed, being still as majestic and as handsome as ever. But seeing his wife approach to speak to him he assumed an air of such fury that she had no alternative but to retreat. “I can’t interrupt him just now, I don’t know what he is doing, we shall see presently,” said Mme de Guermantes, preferring to leave me to form my own conclusions.
Bloch now came up to us and on behalf of his American inquired the identity of a young duchess who was at the party. I replied that she was a niece of M. de Bréauté, which caused Bloch, as this name meant nothing to him, to ask for further explanations. “Bréauté!” the Duchess exclaimed, turning to me. “You remember all that, of course. How ancient it seems now, how far away! Well,”—this to Bloch—“Bréauté was a snob. They were people who lived near my mother-in-law in the country. This couldn’t possibly interest you, Monsieur Bloch—though it may amuse this young man, who knew all that world long ago when I was in the midst of it myself.” This last remark referred to me, and by it Mme de Guermantes brought home to me in a number of different ways how long was the time that had elapsed. First, her own friendships and opinions had so greatly changed since that period that now, in retrospect, she looked upon her charming Babal as a snob. And then,