Swann's Way
from one shoulder to the other (performed with that look of wild
abandonment in her eye which a sufferer shews who is no longer able to
analyse his pain, nor anxious to master it, and says merely "I can't
help it") so increased that at every moment her diamond earrings caught
in the trimming of her bodice, and she was obliged to put straight the
bunch of black grapes which she had in her hair, though without any
interruption of her constantly accelerated motion. On the other side
(and a little way in front) of Mme. de Franquetot, was the Marquise de
Gallardon, absorbed in her favourite meditation, namely upon her own
kinship with the Guermantes family, from which she derived both publicly
and in private a good deal of glory not unmingled with shame, the most
brilliant ornaments of that house remaining somewhat aloof from her,
perhaps because she was just a tiresome old woman, or because she was a
scandalous old woman, or because she came of an inferior branch of the
family, or very possibly for no reason at all. When she found herself
seated next to some one whom she did not know, as she was at this moment
next to Mme. de Franquetot, she suffered acutely from the feeling that
her own consciousness of her Guermantes connection could not be made
externally manifest in visible character like those which, in the
mosaics in Byzantine churches, placed one beneath another, inscribe in a
vertical column by the side of some Sacred Personage the words which he
is supposed to be uttering. At this moment she was pondering the fact
that she had never received an invitation, or even call, from her young
cousin the Princesse des Laumes, during the six years that had already
elapsed since the latter's marriage. The thought filled her with
anger--and with pride; for, by virtue of having told everyone who
expressed surprise at never seeing her at Mme. des Laumes's, that it
was because of the risk of meeting the Princesse Mathilde there--a
degradation which her own family, the truest and bluest of Legitimists,
would never have forgiven her, she had come gradually to believe that
this actually was the reason for her not visiting her young cousin. She
remembered, it is true, that she had several times inquired of Mme. des
Laumes how they might contrive to meet, but she remembered it only in
a confused way, and besides did more than neutralise this slightly
humiliating reminiscence by murmuring, "After all, it isn't for me to
take the first step; I am at least twenty years older than she is." And
fortified by these unspoken words she flung her shoulders proudly back
until they seemed to part company with her bust, while her head, which
lay almost horizontally upon them, made one think of the 'stuck-on' head
of a pheasant which is brought to the table regally adorned with its
feathers. Not that she in the least degree resembled a pheasant, having
been endowed by nature with a short and squat and masculine figure; but
successive mortifications had given her a backward tilt, such as one may
observe in trees which have taken root on the very edge of a precipice
and are forced to grow backwards to preserve their balance. Since she
was obliged, in order to console herself for not being quite on a level
with the rest of the Guermantes, to repeat to herself incessantly that
it was owing to the uncompromising rigidity of her principles and pride
that she saw so little of them, the constant iteration had gradually
remoulded her body, and had given her a sort of 'bearing' which was
accepted by the plebeian as a sign of breeding, and even kindled, at
times, a momentary spark in the jaded eyes of old gentlemen in clubs.
Had anyone subjected Mme. de Gallardon's conversation to that form of
analysis which by noting the relative frequency of its several terms
would furnish him with the key to a ciphered message, he would at
once have remarked that no expression, not even the commonest forms
of speech, occurred in it nearly so often as "at my cousins the
Guermantes's," "at my aunt Guermantes's," "Elzéar de Guermantes's
health," "my cousin Guermantes's box." If anyone spoke to her of a
distinguished personage, she would reply that, although she was not
personally acquainted with him, she had seen him hundreds of times at
her aunt Guermantes's, but she would utter this reply in so icy a tone,
with such a hollow sound, that it was at once quite clear that if
she did not know the celebrity personally that was because of all the
obstinate, ineradicable principles against which her arching shoulders
were stretched back to rest, as on one of those ladders on which
gymnastic instructors make us 'extend' so as to develop the expansion of
our chests.
At this moment the Princesse des Laumes, who had not been expected to
appear at Mme. de Saint-Euverte's that evening, did in fact arrive. To
shew that she did not wish any special attention, in a house to which
she had come by an act of condescension, to be paid to her superior
rank, she had entered the room with her arms pressed close to her sides,
even when there was no crowd to be squeezed through, no one attempting
to get past her; staying purposely at the back, with the air of being
in her proper place, like a king who stands in the waiting procession at
the doors of a theatre where the management have not been warned of his
coming; and strictly limiting her field of vision--so as not to seem to
be advertising her presence and claiming the consideration that was her
due--to the study of a pattern in the carpet or of her own skirt, she
stood there on the spot which had struck her as the most modest (and
from which, as she very well knew, a cry of rapture from Mme. de
Saint-Euverte would extricate her as soon as her presence there was
noticed), next to Mme. de Cambremer, whom, however, she did not know.
She observed the dumb-show by which her neighbour was expressing her
passion for music, but she refrained from copying it. This was not to
say that, for once that she had consented to spend a few minutes in Mme.
de Saint-Euverte's house, the Princesse des Laumes would not have wished
(so that the act of politeness to her hostess which she had performed by
coming might, so to speak, 'count double') to shew herself as friendly
and obliging as possible. But she had a natural horror of what she
called 'exaggerating,' and always made a point of letting people see
that she 'simply must not' indulge in any display of emotion that was
not in keeping with the tone of the circle in which she moved, although
such displays never failed to make an impression upon her, by virtue of
that spirit of imitation, akin to timidity, which is developed in the
most self-confident persons, by contact with an unfamiliar environment,
even though it be inferior to their own. She began to ask herself
whether these gesticulations might not, perhaps, be a necessary
concomitant of the piece of music that was being played, a piece which,
it might be, was in a different category from all the music that she had
ever heard before; and whether to abstain from them was not a sign of
her own inability to understand the music, and of discourtesy towards
the lady of the house; with the result that, in order to express by a
compromise both of her contradictory inclinations in turn, at one moment
she would merely straighten her shoulder-straps or feel in her golden
hair for the little balls of coral or of pink enamel, frosted with tiny
diamonds, which formed its simple but effective ornament, studying, with
a cold interest, her impassioned neighbour, while at another she would
beat time for a few bars with her fan, but, so as not to forfeit her
independence, she would beat a different time from the pianist's. When
he had finished the Liszt Intermezzo and had begun a Prelude by Chopin,
Mme. de Cambremer turned to Mme. de Franquetot with a tender smile,
full of intimate reminiscence, as well as of satisfaction (that of
a competent judge) with the performance. She had been taught in her
girlhood to fondle and cherish those long-necked, sinuous creatures,
the phrases of Chopin, so free, so flexible, so tactile, which begin by
seeking their ultimate resting-place somewhere beyond and far wide of
the direction in which they started, the point which one might have
expected them to reach, phrases which divert themselves in those
fantastic bypaths only to return more deliberately--with a more
premeditated reaction, with more precision, as on a crystal bowl which,
if you strike it, will ring and throb until you cry aloud in anguish--to
clutch at one's heart.
Brought up in a provincial household with few friends or visitors,
hardly ever invited to a ball, she had fuddled her mind, in the solitude
of her old manor-house, over setting the pace, now crawling-slow, now
passionate, whirling, breathless, for all those imaginary waltzing
couples, gathering them like flowers, leaving the ball-room for a moment
to listen, where the wind sighed among the pine-trees, on the shore of
the lake, and seeing of a sudden advancing towards her, more different
from anything one had ever dreamed of than earthly lovers are, a slender
young man, whose voice was resonant and strange and false, in white
gloves. But nowadays the old-fashioned beauty of this music seemed
to have become a trifle stale. Having forfeited, some years back, the
esteem of 'really musical' people, it had lost its distinction and its
charm, and even those whose taste was frankly bad had ceased to find in
it more than a moderate pleasure to which they hardly liked to confess.
Mme. de Cambremer cast a furtive glance behind her. She knew that her
young daughter-in-law (full of respect for her new and noble family,
except in such matters as related to the intellect, upon which, having
'got as far' as Harmony and the Greek alphabet, she was specially
enlightened) despised Chopin, and fell quite ill when she heard him
played. But finding herself free from the scrutiny of this Wagnerian,
who was sitting, at some distance, in a group of her own contemporaries,
Mme. de Cambremer let herself drift upon a stream of exquisite memories
and sensations. The Princesse des Laumes was touched also. Though
without any natural gift for music, she had received, some fifteen
years earlier, the instruction which a music-mistress of the Faubourg
Saint-Germain, a woman of genius who had been, towards the end of
her life, reduced to penury, had started, at seventy, to give to the
daughters and granddaughters of her old pupils. This lady was now dead.
But her method, an echo of her charming touch, came to life now and
then in the fingers of her pupils, even of those who had been in other
respects quite mediocre, had given up music, and hardly ever opened a
piano. And so Mme. des Laumes could let her head sway to and fro, fully
aware of the cause, with a perfect appreciation of the manner in which
the pianist was rendering this Prelude, since she knew it by heart. The
closing notes of the phrase that he had begun sounded already on her
lips. And she murmured "How charming it is!" with a stress on the
opening consonants of the adjective, a token of her refinement by which
she felt her lips so romantically compressed, like the petals of a
beautiful, budding flower, that she instinctively brought her eyes into
harmony, illuminating them for a moment with a vague and sentimental
gaze. Meanwhile Mme. de Gallardon had arrived at the point of saying to
herself how annoying it was that she had so few opportunities of meeting
the Princesse des Laumes, for she meant to teach her a lesson by not
acknowledging her bow. She did not know that her cousin was in the room.
A movement of Mme. Franquetot's head disclosed the Princess. At once
Mme. de Gallardon dashed towards her, upsetting all her neighbours;