Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen (16 page)

Adrien has just set off for Pasteur’s funeral, very melancholy. He is of the party that will follow the casket all the way to the Panthéon. I hope it will not tire him overly. He says the great doctor’s work on infectious diseases will eventually overshadow the renown of his discoveries on heat and bacteria, and that we owe the idea of inoculations as much to him as to the Germans. Adrien is so admirably free of envy, and sees no threat in other men entering his field, only the advancement of the cause of science. Still, we seem to hear nothing but talk of inoculations these days, and not so much of the
cordon sanitaire
.

I will ask Félicie to make a peach tart for dinner with the last of the summer’s fruit, which should cheer us. Marcel will be back with us Sunday.

Lucien Daudet came to visit yesterday. What a charming young man he is. He had been eagerly awaiting Marcel’s return to consult him about some literary project that is afoot—I lose track of all their schemes, these days—and came in to have tea with me. Marcel was in fine form and had us both laughing with an imitation of the Comte de Montesquiou, for he had dined there last
night. I am not sure if it is altogether ethical to accept the great man’s invitations and then mock him behind his back, but he is an easy target for satire, of that there is no doubt, and Marcel has always had a theatrical side and a talent for mimicry. He has mastered both the Count’s mincing ways and his great literary pretensions: “My poetry, monsieur, is not just for any man’s delectation, but must be savoured only by those endowed with the ears to hear it.”—this to a guest chez Mme Straus, who dared to ask if he might be treated to a reading. Lucien was beside himself with joy at the imitation.

When he left, I was praising the Daudet family to Marcel, saying such fine boys as Lucien and Léon are a testament to their parents’ intelligence and breeding. Marcel grew suddenly quite serious and said, “Maman, do not be so sure of what kind of people they are just because their sons are so fine. Old M. Daudet is so frightfully bourgeois, and Madame is anti-Semitic.” I was saddened by his words, that people so full of ideas could also find place in their souls for prejudice.

I worry about these medications on which Marcel relies so much. He is back on his feet today, but only after dosing himself repeatedly with Trional. It is saddening since he returned from Brittany in excellent health. But with the return to Parisian air and that whirlwind of activity—checking final proofs for the story that is to be published next month and getting in touch with all the friends he had not seen over the summer—it
was only to be expected that he would fall ill within a matter of days. I am so disappointed that all the good work the summer had achieved is so quickly demolished by his unwillingness to work on things at a measured pace. I gave him a stern talk on the subject yesterday, but he was quite sharp with me and pointed out that one minute the doctor and I complain he does not work hard enough and the next we insist he slow down. I was angry enough to push a little further on the issue, and said exactly, what I was arguing for was the need for balance. He writes to me so lovingly when away, and then can be so short with me when at home. I suggested Reynaldo and his mother come for tea some day soon, but he just dismissed the idea.

Marcel is impossible. His hours are increasingly erratic—but perhaps I should not say erratic, for they are in fact increasingly predictable. If he goes out it is not before eleven at night. He comes home in the small hours of the morning and writes then or all night through, but is seldom in bed before seven or eight and rises only in mid-afternoon. I sometimes see him for tea then, but he usually takes dinner out. All this is throwing the household into disarray. I have given up waiting up for him when he goes out. I cannot stay awake until two or three in the morning (sometimes these days I suspect it is dawn) and then be breakfasting with Adrien at eight. Félicie complains bitterly that she never knows who will be home for meals or what time they might want them. I have told her that a cold chop is all she need
leave out for Marcel, but in truth I think she resents his absence from lunch and dinner more than she objects to the extra work.

He tells me he is not taking any Trional now that the flowers have died away, but his odd hours can hardly be good for his health. We argued fiercely about it yesterday, but he finally won me over, pleading that he has to write and might as well do it at night since he can never sleep then.

I have ordered Jean not to bring Marcel a breakfast tray when he rings—at two or three in the afternoon, for the love of heaven. He cannot live under our roof but refuse to live by our schedule, without any consideration for the servants. I barely speak with him these days, unless he deigns to join me in the salon when I am taking tea, so I left him a note saying henceforth he would have to find his own bread and coffee. Jean must be allowed to take some time off after lunch if he is to serve dinner, and I cannot run a household according to the whims of a child.

Too angry to speak, let alone write. Maman’s Venetian glass. How could he?

Have sat closeted here all day, and must surely do
something to end this horrible silence between us and rise above our dispute. Just as surely as we are enlarged by art and music, we are diminished by our petty jealousies, trivial domestic complaints, small hurts, and minor lapses until the largest souls are no better than the most common fishwife bawling in the marketplace.

Like a storm exploding the pressure built up in the air, leaving the world damp and calm, the affair of the Venetian glass seems to have exhausted our anger. After skipping lunch and pondering the situation all afternoon, I finally wrote Marcel a little note at five o’clock and slipped it under his door. I reminded him of the wedding ceremony in which the broken glass stands not for rupture but rather for union, and told him we would regard my vase this way, as a marriage of our souls. He came out of his room soon after and kissed me in the old way. All is forgiven, although the sight of Marcel spitefully flinging the glass to the ground will remain with me forever. And I only wish I could forget the words we exchanged before that. To think we were arguing over a pair of gloves, grey when he wanted me to buy him yellow.

As always in difficult times, I have been thinking of Maman, but now with shame, that I should have fallen so far from the model of tender solicitude and maternal devotion that she set. Sometimes I hear her voice in my head, repeating some inconsequential phrase, calling to me from the landing, before she was through the door—“Jeanne, you must read M. Hugo’s
new book, I have it from Delorme’s…” “See how delightful Marcel looks in his sailor suit.” “What a fine day. Shall we not have a walk?” “What did you think of the opera?” The generosity of her spirit never failed. I was daily moved by my love for her and gratitude for her affection.

“Long habit never accustomed me to her worth, the taste was always keen and new,” writes Mme de Sévigné. So too is the loss, always keen and new.

Marcel came home from his interview yesterday rather subdued. He was one of three candidates for three posts, he learned, and his interviewer placed him last. This means he has been offered what is considered the least agreeable of the three positions, one shelving books at the Mazarine. He is to start right away, but since there is no salary attached to the position there are generous provisions for leave, and he hopes to defer his debut until January. That way, he can enjoy the holiday parties and spend some time working on his novel. Not that the library should prove too onerous once he does begin, since they require only a minimum of five hours twice a week, helping to tidy the books. I do hope the air does not trouble Marcel too much. But perhaps I am simply being romantic, imagining some dusty old place where the books have not been looked at in years. No doubt it is all very modern and clean.

I was gladdened by Marcel following his father’s proposal in this regard, and I spoke warmly to him of the
importance of the work he will be doing, no matter how small a role he plays in guarding the great treasures of literature for the French nation.

“V
OUS ÊTES
P
ROUSTIENNE?
You are a fan of Proust?” The assistant assistant librarian is standing near the counter and, smiling and curious, engages me in talk as I return my box at the end of a day’s work.

“Have you visited Illiers? You would be interested. It’s not far to go…”

“Oh, yes. I have been to Illiers. Of course. Good night.”

I hurry away, avoiding his smile.

Oh, yes, I’ve been to Illiers, or Combray, if you will. Of course. It is the one Proustian site that has the makings of a cult. I went there before I came here to the library. It was one of the first places I could think of to go.

On the great plain south of Paris, the mismatched towers of the Gothic cathedral at Chartres rise out of the landscape several miles before the train that left the Gare d’Austerlitz an hour before actually pulls into the station. At Chartres, I cross the platform and board a local that heads out across fields of sunflowers towards the Loir River. In August their leonine heads would lift towards the light, but now, in September, with heads drooping and some stalks collapsed altogether, they look like a defeated army. As I alight at my destination and start down the Rue de Chartres, a cool wind rustles the sparse foliage of the lime trees.

I have been in France less than a week, staying in a little studio I have rented in a working-class neighbourhood in northern Paris. The next-door neighbour is deaf and apologizes for playing his television at a ferocious volume, but it
matters little to me. I have completed my tour of the Musée Carnavalet and now spend my days at the Louvre, or wandering the streets retracing childhood routes, and fall into bed each night too weary to care. After four days with nothing but paintings and cobblestones for company, I finally call the railway from a pay phone and copy down information about schedules. I am not entirely sure why I have come to France; I have difficulty defining what I’m looking for, but at least I can start with a pilgrimage to Illiers-Combray.

For years, Illiers, a small town of some five hundred souls sitting on the Loir, a sluggish little river that should not be confused with the sparkling Loire, was just Illiers. Its most famous son was surely Adrien Proust, the child of the local grocer and candle manufacturer who grew far beyond those roots, studied at the University of Paris and became a leading French doctor and authority on infectious diseases. In the early years of his marriage, he and his young Parisian wife, Jeanne, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish stockbroker, would bring their two sons to visit Dr. Proust’s sister, Elisabeth Amiot, who lived in a small provincial house not far from Illiers’ main square. It was these visits from the age of six to nine, when his asthma made holidays in the country increasingly difficult, that inspired Marcel Proust, almost thirty years later, to create the village of Combray, the town of his memory conjured up from a cup of tea. Decades after the publication of
Remembrance of Things Past
, the town of Illiers voted to add the name of its more famous, fictional version to its own, creating the hyphenated fusion of literature and fact: Illiers-Combray.

Illiers-Combray exploits the memory of its famous visitor with discretion and good taste. Walking into town from the station along the Rue de Chartres, you pass the Lycée
Marcel-Proust. The park where the young Proust brothers once walked is marked with a plaque; the house of Tante Léonie, as Proust renamed his aunt, is a small museum resolutely closed for lunch; the bakery next door boasts that it is the place where she bought her madeleines; the local postcards include the writer’s portrait; and the best restaurant in town, Le Florent on the main square, offers a
Menu Proustien
that includes monkfish and plum tart.

The waitress hands me the menu with the page deliberately turned to this offering and I feel suddenly and guiltily exposed, as though she has seen through my disguise. But, looking down at my khaki pants and stout walking shoes, I realize I can easily be identified as one who might wish to order the
Menu Proustien
. One or two other literary tourists wander the empty streets of Illiers-Combray during the lunchtime hush while the restaurant, where I have retreated until the museum opens, is filled with prosperous business people in suits or sports jackets. Still, I won’t be pigeonholed and deem the waitress’s suggestion too coy. I choose instead a cheaper yet more luxurious menu, eating a terrine of leaks followed by saddle of hare cooked with prunes. Tasting the buttery slice of hare, I realize that the restaurant’s rather urban-looking clientele has probably made the twenty-minute trip from Chartres to eat at this excellent table.

Down the street from the restaurant, just off the main square, the front of the museum is marked with the medallion of Dr. Proust that the English artist Marie Nordlinger originally created for his grave in Paris. The entrance is round the back, through the garden. There, I join a few other solitary visitors to tour the house that was the source of Proust’s memories. The guide takes us through the dining room where the narrator of
A la Recherche
indulged in a quiet pre-lunch
read with only a wall of earthenware plates for company, before we move upstairs to the bedroom overlooking the garden to which the sulking child retreated, waiting for a mother’s kiss, and the front room from which an invalid aunt could watch the comings and goings of neighbours.