It seemed to me, also, that the least of his pictures were something quite different from the masterpieces even of greater painters than himself. His work was like a realm apart, whose frontiers were not to be passed, matchless in substance. Eagerly collecting the infrequent periodicals in which articles on him and his work had appeared, I had learned that it was only recently that he had begun to paint landscapes and still life, and that he had started with mythological subjects (I had seen photographs of two of these in his studio), and had then been for long under the influence of Japanese art.
Several of the works most characteristic of his various manners were scattered about the provinces. A certain house at Les Andelys, in which there was one of his finest landscapes, seemed to me as precious, gave me as keen a desire to go there and see it as did a village in the Chartres district, among whose millstone walls was enshrined a glorious painted window; and towards the possessor of this treasure, towards the man who, inside his ugly house, on the main street, closeted like an astrologer, sat questioning one of those mirrors of the world which Elstir’s pictures were, and who had perhaps bought it for many thousands of francs, I felt myself borne by that instinctive sympathy which joins the very hearts, the inmost natures of those who think alike upon a vital subject. Now three important works by my favourite painter were described in one of these articles as belonging to Mme. de Guermantes. So that it was, after all, quite sincerely that, on the evening on which Saint-Loup told me of his lady’s projected visit to Bruges, I was able, during dinner, in front of his friends, to let fall, as though on the spur of the moment:
“Listen, if you don’t mind. Just one last word on the subject of the lady we were speaking about. You remember Elstir, the painter I met at Balbec?”
“Why, of course I do.”
“You remember how much I admired his work?”
“I do, quite well; and the letter we sent him.”
“Very well, one of the reasons—not one of the chief reasons, a subordinate reason—why I should like to meet the said lady—you do know who I mean, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. How involved you’re getting.”
“Is that she has in her house one very fine picture, at least, by Elstir.”
“I say, I never knew that.”
“Elstir will probably be at Balbec at Easter; you know he stays down there now all the year round, practically. I should very much like to have seen this picture before I leave Paris. I don’t know whether you’re on sufficiently intimate terms with your aunt: but couldn’t you manage, somehow, to give her so good an impression of me that she won’t refuse, and then ask her if she’ll let me come and see the picture without you, since you won’t be there?”
“That’s all right. I’ll answer for her; I’ll make a special point of it.”
“Oh, Robert, you are an angel; I do love you.”
“It’s very nice of you to love me, but it would be equally nice if you were to call me tu, as you promised, and as you began to do.”
“I hope it’s not your departure that you two are plotting together,” one of Robert’s friends said to me. “You know, if Saint-Loup does go on leave, it needn’t make any difference, we shall still be here. It will be less amusing for you, perhaps, but we’ll do all we can to make you forget his absence.” As a matter of fact, just as we had decided that Robert’s mistress would have to go to Bruges by herself, the news came that Captain de Borodino, obdurate hitherto in his refusal, had given authority for Serjeant Saint-Loup to proceed on long leave to Bruges. What had happened was this. The Prince, extremely proud of his luxuriant head of hair, was an assiduous customer of the principal hairdresser in the town, who had started life as a boy under Napoleon III’s barber. Captain de Borodino was on the best of terms with the hairdresser, being, in spite of his air of majesty, quite simple in his dealings with his inferiors. But the hairdresser, through whose books the Prince’s account had been running without payment for at least five years, swollen no less by bottles of Portugal and Eau des Souverains, irons, razors, and strops, than by the ordinary charges for shampooing, haircutting and the like, had a greater respect for Saint-Loup, who always paid on the nail and kept several carriages and saddle-horses. Having learned of Saint-Loup’s vexation at not being able to go with his mistress, he had spoken strongly about it to the Prince at a moment when he was trussed up in a white surplice with his head held firmly over the back of the chair and his throat menaced by a razor. This narrative of a young man’s gallant adventures won from the princely
