Chapter 171 Time to Reappear in Part Seven (20)

A lady was leaving, and she had other afternoon parties to attend, and tea with the two queens.She is the tall courtesan I used to know, Mrs. Prince de Nassau, if she hadn't become thinner (because she was much shorter than before, she would look like what people usually say "One Foot in the Grave"), we can hardly say she looks old.She is still a Marie-Antoinette, with an Austrian nose and interesting eyes. The coordinated coordination of countless cosmetics makes her face ageless, like lilac flowers, and the fragrance is striking.That look of shyness and tenderness on her face, as if to say that she had to go, that she would definitely come again, hoping to slip away unobtrusively, to be associated with the multitude of elite parties that awaited her look.She would have been born almost on the steps of the throne, married three times, lavishly maintained for a long time by some big bankers, not to mention so many whims she had to satisfy, she was dressed in the same pair of eager life as she was. Lovely almond eyes and a lavender dress like a face with makeup, and under the dress are a little inexplicable and unclear souvenirs left by countless past events.Just as she walked past me and was about to run away, I saluted her.She recognized me, she shook my hand, staring at me with her bright lavender eyes, as if saying: "We haven't seen each other for so long! Next time we must say goodbye." She tried hard Hold my hand, I can’t remember, was it that night, when she took me out of the Duchess de Gelmont’s house, we had a fleeting moment in the car? Affair.She tried to hint at something that hadn't happened before, something that didn't bother her, since she could look tenderly at a strawberry tart, and if she had to in the music If she leaves before the end, she looks like she is reluctantly giving up, and this kind of giving up will not be final.Moreover, because she was not sure whether she and I had that affair, she said goodbye to me in a short time, and she didn't say a word to me.She just stared at me as I said, which means "so long!" In this "long" word included her three husbands, the men who supported her, two wars, and the twin stars Her eyes, like an astronomical clock chiseled on milky white stone, mark every solemn and solemn moment in the already so distant past in turn, and she can reproduce it every time she wants to say hello to you that can never be used as an excuse past.Then, after parting with me, she trotted towards the door, so as not to disturb anyone else, and to show me that she hadn't talked to me because she was pressed for time, and she wanted to recover the moment she had lost by shaking my hand. minutes, in order to arrive punctually at the Queen of Spain, with whom she will have dessert alone.I even believe she will run when she gets to the door.In effect, she was running to her grave.

A fat woman said hello to me, and in the brief moment of saying hello, all kinds of different thoughts rushed into my mind.I hesitated at first, not daring to reply, for fear that she would mistake me for someone else because she was less good at recognizing people than I was. Then, her firm demeanor made me suspect that this person might be related to me. Had a very close relationship, exaggerated my charming smile, while my eyes continued to search her appearance, searching for a last name I hadn't remembered yet.Just like a middle school student taking the baccalaureate exam, staring at the examiner’s face in vain hope to find the answer on it, he might as well go to his own memory to search for the answer, just like this, I smiled at the fat woman, stared at her face.It seemed to me that this face resembled Madame Swann's, so my smile was tinged with a little respect.I was hesitating for the end, and a second later, I heard the fat woman say to me, "You think of me as a mother, indeed, I'm starting to look like her." And so, I recognized Hilbert.

We talked a lot about Robert, and Hilbert talked about him in a respectful tone, as if he was a high-ranking person, and she insisted on expressing to me her admiration and understanding for him.We reminded each other and recalled the ideas he had previously set forth on the art of war (for he later told her at Donsonville about the themes he had narrated to me at Doncières), and they were often, in short, Confirmed in many ways by the latest war. "It is difficult for me to express to you how strongly I feel now and during the war, the little details he told me at Doncières. When we parted (nor have we seen each other since) , the last words I heard from him were that he expected Hindenburg, the Napoleonic general, to conduct a Napoleonic campaign with the object of separating his two opponents, he added , these two opponents are likely to be us and the British. And just a year after Robert's death, a critic he admired and was obviously deeply influenced by him in military concepts Henri Bidoux The gentleman said that the Hindenburg offensive in March 1918 was a divisional battle launched by an enemy with concentrated forces against two opponents who opened the front line. It was completed in 1796 by the emperor in the Apennines. Mistakes in Belgium in 1815. Shortly before this, Robert had compared those campaigns to me with certain plays, from which we do not always so easily discern the author's intentions , even he himself would have changed his plans during the creative process. And while Robert made this interpretation of the German offensive in 1918, he would undoubtedly disagree with Bedoux. However, some other Critics argue that it was Hindenburg's success in the direction of Amiens and the subsequent halt, his success in Flanders and the subsequent pause that led to, in any case, the unexpected leading to the emergence from Amiens, and then from Boulogne, of targets which he had not identified beforehand. Just as everyone can rewrite the script in his own way, some people saw in this offensive the symptoms of a lightning march to Paris, others People think there will be some sporadic onslaught to destroy the British army. And even if the orders issued by the Fuehrer run counter to some assumptions, the commentators have ample time to speak up, as when Gokland affirmed Muhammad. Ne-Sully said that "The Misanthropic" was not the kind of tragedy and drama he wanted to perform (because, according to the testimony of his contemporaries, Molière also performed this play in a comic way, which made people laugh). Moliere said at the time, "Then Molière was mistaken."

"As for the planes, do you remember what he said then? He used such beautiful words: Every army must be a 'hundred-day' Argos, alas! It is a pity that he did not see his words get Confirmed." I replied: "No, he saw it, and at the Battle of the Somme he clearly knew that both sides began by gouging out the enemy's eyes, that is, by destroying aircraft and tethered balloons to render the enemy blind. " "Oh! Yes, really." Since she devoted herself to studying advanced academics, her speech and demeanor have become a little bookish: "He also insisted that people are using the old tactics again, you know? In this war, those expeditions to Mesopotamia (at the time, she must have read about it in Brichot's article) were always and uniformly reminiscent of Xenophon's retreat, And to advance from the Tigris to the Euphrates, the British High Command used canoes, a kind of narrow and long boat, a local flat-bottomed canoe, which was used by the Chaldeans in ancient times." These words make I clearly feel that stagnation of the past, that it stays indefinitely in certain places with a certain weight, so that when people see them again, they are just the same.However, to be honest, I was more impressed by the articles I read in Balbec not far from Robert, just like finding the forest paths written by Madame Sevigny in the French countryside, just like in the Orient. , on the question of the position of Cout-Amara (the curate of Combray, if he had extended his etymological predilection to Oriental languages, would have said, Coute-Amara, chief of Coot, "as we Said the Viscount of the Canyon and the Bishop of Bello."), seeing the name of Basra, which is so closely related, returned to the side of Baghdad. After leaving Baghdad or before returning to Baghdad, Basra must be passed before and after boarding or disembarking.

-------- ① In Greek mythology, the prince of Argos had a hundred eyes, fifty of which were always open. After he was killed, the goddess Hera cast his eyes on the peacock's tail. ②Mesopotamia refers to the area between the Euphrates River and the Tigris River, from Baghdad in the north to Babylonia in the south, with a history of 5,000 years. Basra was occupied in January, Baghdad was occupied by Britain in 1917, and Mosul was acquired in 1918.This is what is meant here. ③ Xenophon (431 BC-before 350 BC), a Greek historian, once served as the commander of the Ten Thousand Army of Greece, led the army to fight in the unfamiliar Kurdistan and Armenia, and withdrew to Greece at the beginning of 400 BC. As the material, he wrote "Expedition".

I said to her, "One of the things about war, I think, that he's beginning to realize is that it has a human aspect, that it looks like a love, or a hate, and it can be described as Therefore, if someone babbles that strategy is a science, it will do him no good to understand war, because war is not strategy, and the enemy does not know our plans any more than we do not know the women we love. What was the object of the pursuit, and, perhaps, we ourselves are not aware of these plans. During the March Offensive of 1918, did the Germans know that their object was the capture of Amiens? We know nothing, Maybe they don't even know it, it's the change, their advance in the west towards Amiens that finalizes their plan. If the war is in accordance with the laws of science, it has to be from the other side, like Elstier To describe it as he painted the sea, and as Dostoevsky narrates a man's experience, starting from illusions, beliefs that are gradually corrected. Besides, war is by no means strategic, this is too sure, it is better to Calling it medical involves all sorts of unexpected accidents, accidents that the clinician can seek to avoid, like the Russian Revolution."

Throughout this conversation, Hilbert has been talking about Robert to me with humility and respect, more like talking about my old friend than her dead husband.She seemed to say to me: "I know you admire him very much. Please believe that I am good at understanding this man of superior intelligence." However, she must no longer feel the love for his memory. It is the reason that far affects the characteristics of her present life.Therefore, Andre is now Hilbert's inseparable girlfriend.Although André, first of all, with the help of her husband's talent and her own intelligence, has begun to enter a class that is not yet in the Gelmont social circle, but is much more elegant than those she used to associate with, the Marquise de Saint-Loup condescends to become Her best confidant is still surprising.This incident seemed to be an omen, explaining Hilbert's taste for what she considered an artist's way of life, and her tendency to a real decline in social status.This may be the reason why it is true.But another way of explaining it came to my mind. I have always been so deeply convinced that the image we see concentrated in a certain place is generally very far away from the symmetrical image of the second group. Quite a different reflection of the first set of images, or its effect in general.I was thinking that if people noticed André, her husband and Hilbert together every night, it might be because people had seen André's future husband with La Shell lived together, and later he left Rachel and found Andre.At that time, Hilbert probably didn't know anything about it because his life levels were too far apart and his status was too high.But she should have been able to understand it later, when André's status had risen and hers had fallen to the point where they could glimpse each other, at which point the woman who had turned the man away from Rachel must have liked She developed a powerful attraction, and the man probably had a certain attraction for her, which made her more attracted to him than to Robert. ①

-------- ①We heard Mrs. Prince de Gelmont say passionately and repeatedly in her fragmented voice caused by her dentures: "Yes, that's right, we will establish a sect! We will establish a sect! Ah! How wonderful you are!" Great musician!" She held up her big monocle in front of her wide open eyes, a look that was both amused and apologetic for her inability to maintain this joy. Sorry it took longer, but she was determined to "actively participate in sect building" until the end. ——Author's note. Therefore, seeing André may also remind Gilberte of her youthful romance, thinking of her love for Robert, can't help Gilberte not to respect André, Gilberte feels, Saint-Loup loves Rachel more than she loves herself, and the man whom Rachel deeply loves falls headlong under Andre's pomegranate skirt.Perhaps on the contrary, in the fact that these recollections played no part in Hilbert's preference for the artist couple, it should be seen, as many do, that they are merely the usual The taste for learning and the taste for corruption inherent in society women.Gilberte may have forgotten Robert, just as I have forgotten Albertine. Even if she knew that the artist left Rachel for André, she would never have met them. This fact, which had not played any part in her preference for them, had not occurred to her.It is only by the witnesses of the persons concerned that it is possible to decide that my first explanation is not only plausible but true, and in this case it is the only remaining means.As long as the people concerned can treat their own privacy with some insight and sincerity, although insight is rare when dealing with one's privacy, sincerity is absolutely absent.In any case, it would not be a pleasant thing for Hilbert to see Rachel, who has become a famous actor today.I was therefore disturbed when it was announced that she would read poetry at this afternoon party, of Musset's Memories and La Fontaine's fables.

-------- ①Written in 1841, it is a summary of his love affair with George Sand. "But how can you attend so many parties?" Hilbert asked me, "You are being murdered for money, I didn't expect you to be like this. Of course, I don't just hope to be in my aunt's house." I see you in the ranks of luxury, and I can see you elsewhere," she added slyly, "because my aunt is here." She became Madame Saint-Loup longer than Madame Verdurin entered the family. It was a little earlier, so she always regarded herself as a member of the Gelmont family, and thought that her uncle had harmed her because he had lost his dignity to marry Mrs. Verdurin. A thousand times, indeed, people had heard people laughing at the marriage in her presence, and, of course, people had talked about Saint-Loup lowering his status and marrying her, only when she wasn't there.Because of this, she even more looked down on the aunt of humble origins, and Mrs. Prince de Gelmont, out of the similar rebellious psychology that makes smart people avoid customs and fashion, and the old man's need for memories, in order to try to save as much as possible. Give her noble new look a past, when referring to Hilbert, she always likes to say: "I tell you, my relationship with her has a long history, and I know the mother of this child very well, here, her mother is me. A good friend of my cousin Marsante. It was in my house that she met Hilbert's father. As for poor Saint-Loup, I first got to know his family, his own uncle, who used to be in Raspley. Ah, my best friend." After hearing the introduction from Mrs. Prince de Gelmont, someone said to me; "You see, the Verdurin family is by no means a Bohemian wandering tribe. Mrs. Saint-Loup's family is a family friend." I may be the only one who knows from my grandfather that the Verdurin family is not a Bohemian wandering tribe, but it is not because they know Odette, which shows that people can do whatever they want. The story of the past that no one knows is like telling a journey in a place that no one has been to. "In short," Hilbert concluded, "since you sometimes come out of the ivory tower, why not come to my house and I will invite a few talented people who can express their heartfelt songs to hold a small gathering of individual confidants and close friends. , wouldn't it suit you better? Such complicated games as here are not to your liking. I saw you talking to my aunt Oriana, and she was as good as she wanted, but you can say She wasn't one of the visionaries, and she wasn't wronged."

It is impossible for me to tell Hilbert what I have been thinking for an hour, but I believe that if it is purely for entertainment, she will help me to have fun, which, I think, is to talk about literature, with de Guerre You may not be able to talk to the Duchess of Ermont more than you can talk to Madame de Saint-Loup.Of course, from tomorrow onwards, I hope to start living in isolation again, although this time with purpose.Even in my house, when I'm working, I don't let people come in and see me, the duty of completing the work is more important than being polite, or even being pleasing.People who have not seen me for a long time may insist on coming in, they have seen me, they are sure that my body is restored, and when the day of hard work or hard life is over or interrupted, they need me as I needed Holy Spirit. Lou like that.Also because, as I discovered when I was at Combray, I had just made a very commendable decision without telling my parents and elders. The plate marks the moment when repentance and good intentions have long been made, but the other one has just rang the bell of the judge to punish sins.However, I will muster up the courage to tell anyone who comes to see me or have someone come to see me that I need to get to the bottom of things as soon as possible, that I have a very important urgent appointment with myself.Yet, although our real selves have little relation to our other selves, because they are homonymy, and because they share a body, the self-denial which makes you sacrifice easier duties, and even your own pleasure, will be seen by others. regarded as egoism.

Not to mention that I wasn't living a dull life away from people who complained that they couldn't see me because I was too busy doing things to do with them?Didn't I just want to care about them more deeply?You can't do that with them, and I'm trying to make them aware of their situation, trying to get to know them clearly.Just for the pleasure of insipid social contact, the pleasure of repelling any penetration of general contact, wasting night after night, quietly echoing their breathless voice with my equally empty voice, this kind of life What good is a few more years?The actions they do, the words they say, their life, their temperament, I try to describe the curve of their development and deduce the law from it. Isn't it more meaningful to do so?Unfortunately I also had to contend with the habit of putting myself in the shoes of others, which, if it favors the conception of a work, delays its writing.For it compels us, through red tape, not only to sacrifice our own pleasures for others, but also to sacrifice our duties, duties, whatever they may be, even to a man on the front line, when we put ourselves in the shoes of others. To the man who is of no use and remains in the rear where he is still useful, this duty will appear paradoxically as our joy. Far from considering myself unhappy, as great men sometimes think, for this life without friends and with whom to talk, I have found that the exciting power expended in friendship is an overhang which Aiming at a special friendship that will lead us nowhere, away from the reality, this force should have been able to lead us to this reality.And yet, to be honest, when breaks and breaks in social life have become indispensable to me, I feel that it is better to have a teenage love affair than to engage in academic conversations that society people think are beneficial to writers. Lingering, this kind of relaxed and happy love will be the fodder for my wild imagination that can only feed on roses when I have to.The hope that suddenly revived in me was the same dream I had had at Balbec when I saw Albertine, André and their girlfriends walking along the seashore, when I was not yet there. get to know them.But, eh?But it is no longer possible for me to seek to find them at this moment, which is exactly what I want to see very strongly, the time to change all the people I saw today, including all the people including Hilbert. It must be so if there is no premature death.It pains me to have to hurt them in the past, because the time that changes people does not change the image they hold in our minds.When we realize that what is so freshly stored in our memory is no longer possible to have in life, when we find that what seems so good inside us can no longer be approached outside, never again. The desire that may come close to arousing us, something entirely personal, to find and see again this good in a peer, that is, in another, is nowhere nearer than that which exists in man's decay and The contrast between the immutability of memory is all the more poignant.It is, as I have often surmised, that what we think is only in the person we want does not belong to him.At this point, however, Years Past is more complete proof for me, because, twenty years later, what I instinctively want to find is not the girls I used to know, but the possessions that belonged to them at the time. (Actually, this is not necessarily a resurgence of sensual desires that are quite different from reality due to ignoring the passing time. Sometimes, I also hope that a miracle will happen, and my grandmother, Albertina, contrary to what I think, Still alive in the world, came to me. I thought I saw them, and my heart rushed to them. I just ignored a problem, that is, if they are really alive, then Albertine's current The appearance should be similar to the appearance of Mrs. Godard I had seen in Balbec. And my grandmother, who is over ninety-five years old, I will never see her calm and kind smile again. The imaginary smile, the arbitrariness of my imagination is like putting a beard on God, or like the seventeenth century, when people performed Homer's heroes in the strange clothes of nobles, regardless of whether they are ancient figures). I looked at Hilbert, but I didn't think: "I really hope to see her again", but I said to her, if she could invite some young girls as well as me, I would be very happy If possible, girls from poor families, let me make them happy with some small gifts. In fact, I want nothing from them, but only hope that they can arouse the fantasy in my heart and make the old sorrow Resurrected from the dead, perhaps, one day, unlikely, to receive an innocent kiss.Hilbert smiled, and then showed an expression of serious thinking. Just as Elstir liked to see his wife before him the embodiment of the Venetian beauty he so often portrayed in his works, I excused myself that I was attracted by a certain aesthetic selfishness, Lead me to beautiful women who can cause me pain.Moreover, for the future Gilberts, the future Duchesses de Guermantes, and the future Albertines I might still meet, I have something akin to idolatry, like The sculptors who walk among the beautiful ancient marble sculptures, I think, will inspire me.However, I should also think that before coming into contact with each of them, I should have my perception of the mystery that surrounds them. Therefore, instead of asking Gilberte to introduce some girls to me, I should To go to places where there is no connection between me and them, so that we feel that there is something insurmountable between us and them, or on the beach, on the way to swim, until we feel that although they are close It's so close, but it seems to go far away.This is how my sense of mystery was invoked successively on Gilberte, the Duchesse de Guermantes, Albertine, and many other women.Undoubtedly, the unknown and almost unrecognizable becomes known, familiar, innocuous or painful, and yet retains a certain charm from its former self.Seriously, like none of those calendars that the postman sends us for annual rewards, there's no year that has a picture of the woman I'd like to see there on the cover or in the insert on a certain day elephant.The woman in the picture, for example, Mrs. Putbus's valet, Miss Oswell, or some surname I have seen in the social reports of the newspapers, belongs to the "lots of lovely waltz partners" girls. , because sometimes it is a woman I have never seen before, which makes the image more arbitrary.I surmised that she was a natural beauty, fell in love with her, and pieced together for her an ideal body, graceful and graceful among the scenery of the province where her estate was located, as I read it from the "Almanac of the Castle".As for the women I know, the background is at least twofold.They each stood differently at different points in the course of my life, standing there like local goddesses of protection.The background they are in is above all dreamy, and the parallel lines of the scenery divide my life into a grid, and there I devote myself to her imagination.The second is seen from the perspective of memory, she is surrounded by the scenery in which I knew her before, she reminds me now, she is still fixed in those places, because, if our life is adrift Uncertain, but our memory is hidden away, our non-stop sprinting is futile, our memory is firmly riveted to those places we have left long ago, and continues to combine them in a life that has nothing to do with the world, just like traveling A man arrives in a city, makes some temporary friends there, and when he leaves the city he has to leave them behind, because they cannot go, they have to stay there, in front of the church, by the port, in the courtyard Under the tree ended their days, their lives, as if he were still there.Therefore, Hilbert's shadow is not only projected in front of a certain church in Île-de-France, which is what I imagined her, but also projected on the flower path of a park on the other side of Mézèglise, where de Gelmont The figure of Mrs. Te is cast on a wet road, where clusters of spindle-shaped colorful flowers and fruits are crawling, or in the golden morning glow on the streets of Paris.And this second figure is not born from desire, but from memory, which is not unique to each of them.Because each of them is something I have known many times at different times. At this time, they are another woman to me, and I am no longer the original me, and I am immersed in a dream of another color. inside.The memory of a certain woman I knew now gathers around the original annual dreams, and the law governing these dreams is: everything related to someone, such as the Duchess de Guermantes in my childhood, with the aid of A certain attraction was centered around Combray, and everything connected with the Duchess de Guermantes, who was about to invite me to lunch, was centered around a very different and easily angry person.There are several Duchess de Guermantes, just like there are several Madame Swann counting from the woman in rose red dress. The colorless space of the years separates them one by one. Possibly jumping from one to another, unless I have the means to leave one planet and go to another across space.This planet is not only separated, but also different, embellished with dreams I have had in very different periods, like a special flora with exotic flowers that cannot be seen on another planet. of.Even when I planned to go neither to Mrs. de Forcheville's nor to Mrs. de Gelmont's for lunch, because it would take me to a different world, even if I made such a plan In the future, I still can't tell myself that one of them is a descendant of Geneviève de Brabant, the same person as the Duchess de Gelmontes, and the other is the same person in the rose red dress. Lady, because a cultured person in my mind is sure of it, with as much authority as a scholar who told me that the nebulae and galaxies were formed by the splitting of the same star.Hilbert, for example, I asked her without thinking to let me have some friends like her in the past, because she was only Madame de Saint-Loup to me, and when I saw her, I no longer thought about it. The part she had played in my past love, she also forgot that part.Bergotte again became for me only the author of his books, and my admiration for him did not remind me (only in rare and completely isolated recollections) that I was introduced to this The excitement of manhood, and among men in white furs, delivered so early on so many brackets and snail-leg tables, in drawing-rooms of so many lamps, in drawing-rooms full of violets I was disappointed and surprised talking to him here.All the memories that constituted the first Mademoiselle Swann had in fact been severed from the present Hilbert, drawn far away by the gravitational force of another world, to the words of Bergotte's words. Surroundings, united with this sentence, are immersed in the fragrance of English hawthorn. Today's Hilbert remnant listened to my request with a smile on his face.Then she considered the request with a serious look.I felt relieved about it, because then she wouldn't notice the other group of people, the ones she was bound to be unhappy seeing.I found that the Duchess de Guermantes was talking with a very ugly old woman. I looked at her and couldn't guess who she was at all: I knew absolutely nothing about her. In fact, at this time Speaking to Hilbert's aunt, Mme. Fontaine's poems.The Duchess, driven by her awareness of the historically important position she had in Paris (a position she did not know existed only in the minds of people who believed in such a thing), many new characters, if they had never seen her anywhere , if they had never seen her name in the report of some elegant party, they would think she was not really a big deal), only yawned in as few interviews as possible, and as long as possible. The Saint-Germain district she spoke of, which bored her to death, showed its face.Instead, on a whim, he would have lunch with this or that actress she thought would be interesting.She frequented some of the new social centers where she was more of her own way than she thought she would be, and she still thought that being easily bored was a sign of intellectual superiority, but she did so with a certain roughness that made her voice a little hoarse When I spoke to her of Brichot, she said: "He has bored me for twenty years," and when Mrs. Cambremer said: "Reread Schopenhauer. Discussion about music", she said rudely: "Re-reading this is really a golden rule! Ah! No, we just shouldn't do it," thus reminding us to pay attention to this sentence.Old Albon smiled, recognizing one of the manifestations of Gelmont's spirit.希尔贝特比较现代派，她保持不动声色。她尽管是斯万的女儿，却象母鸡孵出来的鸭子，比较超脱，她说：“我觉得这还是有它动人之处。它具有一种令人可喜的敏感。” -------- ①我对德·盖尔芒特夫人说，我碰到过夏吕斯先生。她觉得他实际上变得更“衰退”了。社交界的人们在区分智力高低的时候，不仅对智力相差无几的不同人士作这种区分，对同一个人一生中的各个时期也区别对待。接着她补充说：“他生来活脱活现地象我婆婆，而现在更惊人地酷肖她了。”这种相象并没有什么异乎寻常之处。我们知道，有些女人几乎可以说是以最大的精确性将自己的形貌投射在另一个人的身上，唯一的谬误在于性别不同。这是一种不能被称作felixculpa（拉丁语，幸运的差错）的阴错阳差，因为性别反过来又影响一个人的个性，男子身上被女性化了的东西便成了矫揉造作、敏感的矜持，等等。尽管脸上胡子拉碴，颊髯遮去了通红的面颊，那里总有一些能与母亲的外貌相叠合的线条。夏吕斯家的人难得有老而不衰的，而在他的衰老中，人们总能惊异地辨认出臃肿的脂肪和搽脸香粉下一位永远年轻的佳丽的残片。就在此时，莫雷尔走了进来。公爵夫人对他热络得令我有点张惶失措。“啊！我不介入家庭纠纷，”她说，“您不觉得家庭纠纷令人讨厌吗？”——作者注。 因为，如果说在这二十年间的那几个阶段中，小集团群按新星的引力大小而解体改组，而且新星本身也必然地会远去，然后又重现，那么在人们的头脑里则进行了凝聚，然后是分裂，然后又是凝聚。如果德·盖尔芒特夫人对我而言曾是好几个人，那么，对德·盖尔芒特夫人、或者对斯万夫人等等而言，某人也可以是几个人合成的，他在德雷福斯案之前的某个阶段可以是一个红人，从发生德雷福斯案起则成了盲信者，或者傻瓜蛋，对他们而言，此案改变了人的价值并另行分派，而自此以后，派别还在分化改组。其中起到强有力的作用和添加它对纯然智力亲合的影响的则是已逝的时间，它使我们忘记了自己的反感，蔑视，甚至导致反感、蔑视的原由。如果我们分析一下小康布尔梅夫人的优雅风姿，我们就会发现她是我们商行的买卖人絮比安的女儿，而使一个买卖人的女儿能引人嘱目的原因是她父亲为夏吕斯先生弄到一些人手。然而，所有这一切加在一起只产生了些许明明灭灭的效果，那些已经遥远的起因，不仅不为许多人所知，就连那些知道的人也已把它们遗忘了，他们更多地看到的是目前的光辉，而不是往日的耻辱，因为人们总是以目前的含义去理解某个姓氏的。这些沙龙的变化，其意义也便在于它们是已逝去年华的一个效果和记忆的一种奇观。 公爵夫人还在犹豫，她怕德·盖尔芒特先生当着她欣赏的巴尔蒂和米斯丹盖的面与她闹上一场，但她肯定有拉谢尔当她的朋友。晚辈后生们便因此断定她徒有虚名，她德·盖尔芒特公爵夫人大概是那种有点象河狸式的人物，从来就没有整个儿地属于上流社会过。确实也有两位贵妇与她争夺某些君主的青睐，她还得费一番力才能把他们请来吃饭。然而，一方面因为他们很少来，他们还认识一些毫无可取之处的人，另一方面出于盖尔芒特家族对老式社交礼仪的迷信（她既讨厌那些颇有教养的人，又坚持要良好的教育），公爵夫人让人写上：“陛下曾谕示德·盖尔芒特公爵夫人曾垂顾……”新阶层的人们对这类用语一无所知，于是更断定德·盖尔芒特夫人地位低下。在德·盖尔芒特夫人看来，同拉谢尔的这种亲密关系正可以说明，我们认为她斥责风雅是故作姿态、假话骗人，其实错怪了她，我们认为她拒绝去德·圣德费尔特夫人家的行为不是顾及才智，而是为了冒充高雅，其实又错怪了她，她觉得侯爵夫人愚蠢，只是因为侯爵夫人还没有达到目的便让人看出她在冒充高雅。然而同拉谢尔的这种亲密关系还能说明，公爵夫人本身实在是才智平庸的人，至迟暮之年，当她厌倦了社交生活的时候，由于对真正实在的才智一无所知和出于那种随心所欲的一点妄想，她不满足于已取得的、希望获得新的成就。这种随心所欲会使有些十分体面的妇人认为以实在令人头疼的方式结束夜晚“是多么地有趣”，她们闹恶作剧，半夜三更去叫醒某人，披着晚大衣到那个人床边呆上一段时间，最后都找不出话说了，这才发现时间实在太晚了，才去睡觉。 还应该补充说一说的是，最近以来，朝秦暮楚的公爵夫人对希尔贝特的反感使她得以从接待拉谢尔中获得某种欢乐，而且使她得以发扬光大盖尔芒特家族的一条格言，那便是站在某些人一边（几乎是死心塌地地）帮助争吵的大有人在，人们不得不对夏吕斯先生采取的策略加强了“我用不着做”的独立性。如果你追随夏吕斯先生，他会使你同大家闹得不亦乐乎。