Swann's Way - Marcel Proust [135]
However, when the “faithful” were scattered out of earshot, the doctor felt that the opportunity was too good to be missed, and so (while Mme Verdurin was adding a final word of commendation of Vinteuil’s sonata), like a would-be swimmer who jumps into the water so as to learn, but chooses a moment when there are not too many people looking on: “Yes, indeed; he’s what they call a musician di primo cartello!” he exclaimed with sudden determination.
Swann discovered no more than that the recent appearance of Vinteuil’s sonata had caused a great stir among the most advanced school of musicians, but that it was still unknown to the general public.
“I know someone called Vinteuil,” said Swann, thinking of the old piano-teacher at Combray who had taught my grandmother’s sisters.
“Perhaps he’s the man,” cried Mme Verdurin.
“Oh, no, if you’d ever set eyes on him you wouldn’t entertain the idea.”
“Then to entertain the idea is to settle it?” the doctor suggested.
“But it may well be some relation,” Swann went on. “That would be bad enough; but, after all, there’s no reason why a genius shouldn’t have a cousin who’s a silly old fool. And if that should be so, I swear there’s no known or unknown form of torture I wouldn’t undergo to get the old fool to introduce me to the man who composed the sonata; starting with the torture of the old fool’s company, which would be ghastly.”
The painter understood that Vinteuil was seriously ill at the moment, and that Dr Potain despaired of his life.
“What!” cried Mme Verdurin, “Do people still call in Potain?”
“Ah! Mme Verdurin,” Cottard simpered, “you forget that you are speaking of one of my colleagues—I should say one of my masters.”
The painter had heard it said that Vinteuil was threatened with the loss of his reason. And he insisted that signs of this could be detected in certain passages in the sonata. This remark did not strike Swann as ridiculous; but it disturbed him, for, since a work of pure music contains none of the logical sequences whose deformation, in spoken or written language, is a proof of insanity, so insanity diagnosed in a sonata seemed to him as mysterious a thing as the insanity of a dog or a horse, although instances may be observed of these.
“Don’t speak to me about your masters; you know ten times as much as he does!” Mme Verdurin answered Dr Cottard, in the tone of a woman who has the courage of her convictions and is quite ready to stand up to anyone who disagrees with her. “At least you don’t kill your patients!”
“But, Madame, he is in the Academy,” replied the doctor with heavy irony. “If a patient prefers to die at the hands of one of the princes of science … It’s much smarter to be able to say, ‘Yes, I have Potain.’ ”
“Oh, indeed! Smarter, is it?” said Mme Verdurin. “So there are fashions, nowadays, in illness, are there? I didn’t know that … Oh, you do make me laugh!” she screamed suddenly, burying her face in her hands. “And here was I, poor thing, talking quite seriously and never realising that you were pulling my leg.”
As for M. Verdurin, finding it rather a strain to raise a laugh for so little, he was content with puffing out a cloud of smoke from his pipe, reflecting sadly that he could no longer catch up with his wife in the field of amiability.
“D’you know, we like your friend very much,” said Mme Verdurin when Odette was bidding her good night. “He’s so unaffected, quite charming. If they’re all like that, the friends you want to introduce to us, by all means bring them.”
M. Verdurin remarked that Swann had failed, all the same, to appreciate the pianist’s aunt.
“I dare say he felt a little out of his depth, poor man,” suggested Mme Verdurin. “You can’t expect him to have caught the tone of the house already, like Cottard, who has been one of our little clan now for years. The first time doesn’t count; it’s just for breaking the ice. Odette, it’s agreed that he’s to join us tomorrow at the Châtelet. Perhaps you might call for him?”
“No, he doesn