In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV (54 page)

The sea was only just discernible from the windows on the right. But those on the other side revealed the valley, now shrouded in a snowy cloak of moonlight. From time to time one heard the voices of Morel and Cottard. “Have you any trumps?” “
Yes
.” “From what I saw, ’pon my soul . . .” said M. de Cambremer to Morel, in answer to his question, for he had seen that the Doctor’s hand was full of trumps. “Here comes the lady of diamonds,” said the Doctor. “Zat iss trump, you know? My trick. But there isn’t a Sorbonne any longer,” said the Doctor to M. de Cambremer, “there’s only the University of Paris.” M. de Cambremer confessed that he did not see the point of this remark. “I thought you were talking about the Sorbonne,” continued the Doctor. “I understood you to say: Sorbonne my soul,” he added, with a wink, to show that this was a pun. “Just wait a moment,” he said, pointing to his opponent, “I have a Trafalgar in store for him.” And the prospect must have been excellent for the Doctor, for in his joy his shoulders began to shake voluptuously with laughter, a motion which in his family, in the “genus” Cottard, was an almost zoological sign of satisfaction. In the previous generation the movement used to be accompanied by that of rubbing the hands together as though one were soaping them. Cottard himself had originally employed both forms of mimicry simultaneously, but one fine day, nobody ever knew by whose intervention, wifely or perhaps professional, the rubbing of the hands had disappeared. The Doctor, even at dominoes, when he forced his opponent into a corner and made him take the double six, which was to him the keenest of pleasures, contented himself with the shoulder-shake. And when—which was as seldom as possible—he went down to his native village for a few days and met his first cousin who was still at the hand-rubbing stage, he would say to Mme Cottard on his return: “I thought poor René very common.” “Have you any little dears?” he said, turning to Morel. “No? Then I play this old David.” “Then you have five, you’ve won!” “A splendid victory, Doctor,” said the Marquis. “A Pyrrhic victory,” said Cottard, turning to face the Marquis and looking at him over his glasses to judge the effect of his remark. “If there’s still time,” he said to Morel, “I give you your revenge. It’s my deal. Ah! no, here come the carriages, it will have to be Friday, and I shall show you a trick you don’t see every day.”

M. and Mme Verdurin accompanied us to the door. The Mistress was particularly affectionate to Saniette so as to make certain of his returning next time. “But you don’t look to me as if you were properly wrapped up, my boy,” said M. Verdurin, whose age allowed him to address me in this paternal tone. “It looks as though the weather has changed.” These words filled me with joy, as though the dormant life, the resurgence of different combinations which they implied in nature, heralded other changes, occurring in my own life, and created fresh possibilities in it. Merely by opening the door on to the garden, before leaving, one felt that a different weather had, at that moment, taken possession of the scene; cooling breezes, one of the joys of summer, were rising in the fir plantation (where long ago Mme de Cambremer had dreamed of Chopin) and almost imperceptibly, in caressing coils, in fitful eddies, were beginning their gentle nocturnes. I declined the rug which, on subsequent evenings, I was to accept when Albertine was with me, more to preserve the secrecy of pleasure than to avoid the risk of cold. A vain search was made for the Norwegian philosopher. Had he been seized by a colic? Had he been afraid of missing the train? Had an aeroplane come to fetch him? Had he been carried aloft in an Assumption? In any case he had vanished without anyone’s noticing his departure, like a god. “You are unwise,” M. de Cambremer said to me, “it’s as cold as charity.” “Why charity?” the Doctor inquired. “Beware of your spasms,” the Marquis went on. “My sister never goes out at night. However, she is in a pretty bad state at present. In any case you oughtn’t to stand about bare-headed, put your tile on at once.” “They are not a
frigore
spasms,” said Cottard sententiously. “Ah, well,” M. de Cambremer bowed, “of course, if that’s your view . . .” “View halloo,” said the Doctor, his eyes twinkling behind his glasses. M. de Cambremer laughed, but, convinced that he was in the right, insisted: “All the same,” he said, “whenever my sister goes out after dark, she has an attack.” “It’s no use quibbling,” replied the Doctor, oblivious of his own discourtesy. “However, I don’t practise medicine by the seaside, unless I’m called in for a consultation. I’m here on holiday.” He was perhaps even more on holiday than he would have liked. M. de Cambremer having said to him as they got into the carriage together: “We’re fortunate in having quite close to us (not on your side of the bay, on the opposite side, but it’s quite narrow at that point) another medical celebrity, Dr du Boulbon,” Cottard, who as a rule, from “deontology,” abstained from criticising his colleagues, could not help exclaiming, as he had exclaimed to me on the fatal day when we had visited the little casino: “But he isn’t a doctor. He practises a sort of literary medicine, whimsical therapy, pure charlatanism. All the same, we’re on quite good terms. I’d take the boat and go over and pay him a visit if I didn’t have to go away.” But, from the air which Cottard assumed in speaking of du Boulbon to M. de Cambremer, I felt that the boat which he would gladly have taken to call upon him would have greatly resembled that vessel which, in order to go and spoil the waters discovered by another literary doctor, Virgil (who took all their patients from them as well), the doctors of Salerno had chartered, but which sank with them during the crossing. “Good-bye, my dear Saniette. Don’t forget to come tomorrow, you know how fond of you my husband is. He enjoys your wit and intelligence; yes indeed, you know quite well he does. He likes putting on a show of brusqueness, but he can’t do without you. It’s always the first thing he asks me: ‘Is Saniette coming? I do so enjoy seeing him.’ ” “I never said anything of the sort,” said M. Verdurin to Saniette with a feigned frankness which seemed perfectly to reconcile what the Mistress had just said with the manner in which he treated Saniette. Then, looking at his watch, doubtless so as not to prolong the leave-taking in the damp night air, he warned the coachmen not to lose any time, but to be careful when going down the hill, and assured us that we should be in plenty of time for our train. The latter was to set down the faithful, one at one station, another at a second, and so on, ending with myself, for no one else was going as far as Balbec, and beginning with the Cambremers, who, in order not to bring their horses all the way up to La Raspelière at night took the train with us at Douville-Féterne. For the station nearest to them was not this one, which, being already at some distance from the village, was further still from the château, but La Sogne. On arriving at the station of Douville-Féterne, M. de Cambremer made a point of “crossing the palm,” as Françoise used to say, of the Verdurins’ coachman (the nice, sensitive coachman, with the melancholy thoughts), for M. de Cambremer was generous, in that respect “taking after his mamma.” But, possibly because his “papa’s side” intervened at this point, in the process of giving he had qualms about the possibility of an error—either on his part, if, for instance, in the dark, he were to give a sou instead of a franc, or on the part of the recipient who might not notice the size of the present that was being given him. And so he drew attention to it: “It is a franc I’m giving you, isn’t it?” he said to the coachman, turning the coin until it gleamed in the lamplight, and so that the faithful might report his action to Mme Verdurin. “Isn’t it? Twenty sous is right, as it’s only a short drive.” He and Mme de Cambremer left us at La Sogne. “I shall tell my sister,” he repeated to me once more, “about your spasms. I’m sure she’ll be interested.” I understood that he meant: “will be pleased.” As for his wife, she employed, in saying good-bye to me, two abbreviations which even in writing, used to shock me at that time in a letter, although one has grown accustomed to them since, but which, when spoken, seem to me still, even today, insufferably pedantic in their deliberate carelessness, in their studied familiarity: “Delighted to have met you,” she said; “greetings to Saint-Loup, if you see him.” In making this speech, Mme de Cambremer pronounced the name “Saint-Loupe.” I never discovered who had pronounced it thus in her hearing, or what had led her to suppose that it ought to be so pronounced. However that may be, for some weeks afterwards she continued to say “Saint-Loupe,” and a man who had a great admiration for her and echoed her in every way did the same. If other people said “Saint-Lou,” they would insist, would say emphatically “Saint-Loupe,” either to teach the others a lesson indirectly, or to distinguish themselves from them. But no doubt women of greater social prestige than Mme de Cambremer told her, or gave her indirectly to understand, that this was not the correct pronunciation, and that what she regarded as a sign of originality was a solecism which would make people think her little conversant with the usages of society, for shortly afterwards Mme de Cambremet was again saying “Saint-Lou,” and her admirer similarly ceased to hold out, either because she had admonished him, or because he had noticed that she no longer sounded the final consonant and had said to himself that if a woman of such distinction, energy and ambition had yielded, it must have been on good grounds. The worst of her admirers was her husband, Mme de Cambremer loved to tease other people in a way that was often highly impertinent. As soon as she began to attack me, or anyone else, in this fashion, M. de Cambremer would start watching her victim with a laugh. As the Marquis had a squint—a blemish which gives an impression of intended wit to the mirth even of imbeciles—the effect of this laughter was to bring a segment of pupil into the otherwise complete whiteness of his eye. Thus does a sudden rift bring a patch of blue into an otherwise clouded sky. His monocle moreover protected, like the glass over a valuable picture, this delicate operation. As for the actual intention of his laughter, it was hard to say whether it was friendly: “Ah! you rascal, you’re a lucky man and no mistake! You’ve won the favour of a woman with a very pretty wit.” Or vicious: “Well then, I hope you’ll learn your lesson when you’ve swallowed all those insults.” Or obliging: “I’m here, you know. I take it with a laugh because it’s all pure fun, but I shan’t let you be ill-treated.” Or cruelly conniving: “I don’t need to add my little pinch of salt, but you can see I’m enjoying all the snubs she’s handing out to you. I’m laughing myself silly, because I approve, and I’m her husband. So if you should take it into your head to answer back, you’d have me to deal with, young fellow. First of all I’d fetch you a couple of monumental clouts, and then we should go and cross swords in the forest of Chantepie.”

Whatever the correct interpretation of the husband’s merriment, the wife’s whimsical banter soon came to an end. Whereupon M. de Cambremer ceased to laugh, the temporary pupil vanished, and as one had forgotten for a minute or two to expect an entirely white eyeball, it gave this ruddy Norman an air at once anaemic and ecstatic, as though the Marquis had just undergone an operation, or were imploring heaven, through his monocle, for a martyr’s crown.

Chapter Three

I
was dropping with sleep. I was taken up to my floor not by the lift-boy but by the squinting page, who to make conversation informed me that his sister was still with the gentleman who was so rich, and that once, when she had taken it into her head to return home instead of sticking to her business, her gentleman friend had paid a visit to the mother of the squinting page and of the other more fortunate children, who had very soon made the silly creature return to her protection. “You know, sir, she’s a fine lady, my sister is. She plays the piano, she talks Spanish. And, you’d never believe it of the sister of the humble employee who’s taking you up in the lift, but she denies herself nothing; Madame has a maid to herself, and she’ll have her own carriage one day, I shouldn’t wonder. She’s very pretty, if you could see her, a bit too high and mighty, but well, you can understand that. She’s full of fun. She never leaves a hotel without relieving herself first in a wardrobe or a drawer, just to leave a little keepsake with the chambermaid who’ll have to clean up. Sometimes she does it in a cab, and after she’s paid her fare, she’ll hide behind a tree, and she doesn’t half laugh when the cabby finds he’s got to clean his cab after her. My father had another stroke of luck when he found my young brother this Indian prince he used to know long ago. It’s not the same style of thing, of course. But it’s a superb position. If it wasn’t for the travelling, it would be a dream. I’m the only one still on the shelf. But you never know. We’re a lucky family; perhaps one day I shall be President of the Republic. But I’m keeping you babbling” (I had not uttered a single word and was beginning to fall asleep as I listened to the flow of his). “Good night, sir. Oh! thank you, sir. If everybody had as kind a heart as you, there wouldn’t be any poor people left. But, as my sister says, ‘there must always be poor people so that now that I’m rich I can shit on them.’ You’ll pardon the expression. Good night, sir.”

Perhaps every night we accept the risk of experiencing, while we are asleep, sufferings which we regard as null and void because they will be felt in the course of a sleep which we suppose to be unconscious. And indeed on these evenings when I came back late from La Raspelière I was very sleepy. But after the weather turned cold I could not get to sleep at once, for the fire lighted up the room as though there were a lamp burning in it. Only it was nothing more than a brief blaze, and—like a lamp too, or like the daylight when night falls—its too bright light was not long in fading; and I entered the realm of sleep, which is like a second dwelling into which we move for that one purpose. It has noises of its own and we are sometimes violently awakened by the sound of bells, perfectly heard by our ears, although nobody has rung. It has its servants, its special visitors who call to take us out, so that we are ready to get up when we are compelled to realise, by our almost immediate transmigration into the other dwelling, our waking one, that the room is empty, that nobody has called. The race that inhabits it, like that of our first human ancestors, is androgynous. A man in it appears a moment later in the form of a woman. Things in it show a tendency to turn into men, men into friends and enemies. The time that elapses for the sleeper, during these spells of slumber, is absolutely different from the time in which the life of the waking man is passed. Sometimes its course is far more rapid—a quarter of an hour seems a day—at other times far longer—we think we have taken only a short nap, when we have slept through the day. Then, in the chariot of sleep, we descend into depths in which memory can no longer keep up with it, and on the brink of which the mind has been obliged to retrace its steps.