Combray. “Why! That must be the series that Elstir told us about, the greatest painter of this generation,” exclaimed Albertine, who had said nothing so far. “Ah! I can see that this young lady loves the arts,” cried Mme. de Cambremer and, drawing a long breath, recaptured a trail of spittle. “You will allow me to put Le Sidaner before him, Mademoiselle,” said the lawyer, smiling with the air of an expert. And, as he had enjoyed, or seen people enjoy, years ago, certain “daring” work by Elstir, he added: “Elstir was gifted, indeed he was one of the advance guard, but for some reason or other he never kept up, he has wasted his life.” Mme. de Cambremer disagreed with the lawyer, so far as Elstir was concerned, but, greatly to the annoyance of her guest, bracketed Monet with Le Sidaner. It would be untrue to say that she was a fool; she was overflowing with a kind of intelligence that meant nothing to me. As the sun was beginning to set, the seagulls were now yellow, like the water-lilies on another canvas of that series by Monet. I said that I knew it, and (continuing to copy the diction of her brother, whom I had not yet dared to name) added that it was a pity that she had not thought of coming a day earlier, for, at the same hour, there would have been a Poussin light for her to admire. Had some Norman squireen, unknown to the Guermantes, told her that she ought to have come a day earlier, Mme. de Cambremer-Legrandin would doubtless have drawn herself up with an offended air. But I might have been far more familiar still, and she would have been all smiles and sweetness; I might in the warmth of that fine afternoon devour my fill of that rich honey cake which Mme. de Cambremer so rarely was and which took the place of the dish of pastry that it had not occurred to me to offer my guests. But the name of Poussin, without altering the amenity of the society lady, called forth the protests of the connoisseur. On hearing that name, she produced six times in almost continuous succession that little smack of the tongue against the lips which serves to convey to a child who is misbehaving at once a reproach for having begun and a warning not to continue. “In heaven’s name, after a painter like Monet, who is an absolute genius, don’t go and mention an old hack without a vestige of talent, like Poussin. I don’t mind telling you frankly that I find him the deadliest bore. I mean to say, you can’t really call that sort of thing painting. Monet, Degas, Manet, yes, there are painters if you like! It is a curious thing,” she went on, fixing a scrutinous and ecstatic gaze upon a vague point in space where she could see what was in her mind, “it is a curious thing, I used at one time to prefer Manet. Nowadays, I still admire Manet, of course, but I believe I like Monet even more. Oh! The Cathedrals!” She was as scrupulous as she was condescending in informing me of the evolution of her taste. And one felt that the phases through which that taste had evolved were not, in her eyes, any less important than the different manners of Monet himself. Not that I had any reason to feel flattered by her taking me into her confidence as to her preferences, for even in the presence of the narrowest of provincial ladies she could not remain for five minutes without feeling the need to confess them. When a noble dame of Avranches, who would have been incapable of distinguishing between Mozart and Wagner, said in Mme. de Cambremer’s hearing: “We saw nothing of any interest while we were in Paris, we went once to the Opéra-Comique, they were doing Pelléas et Mélisande, it’s dreadful stuff,” Mme. de Cambremer not only boiled with rage but felt obliged to exclaim: “Not at all, it’s a little gem,” and to “argue the point.” It was perhaps a Combray habit which she had picked up from my grandmother’s sisters, who called it “fighting in the good cause,” and loved the dinner-parties at which they knew all through the week that they would have to defend their idols against the Philistines. Similarly, Mme. de Cambremer liked to “fly into a passion” and wrangle about art, as other people do about politics. She stood up for Debussy as she would have stood up for a woman friend whose conduct had been criticised. She must however have known very well that when she said: “Not at all, it’s a little gem,” she could not improvise in the other lady, whom she was putting in her place, the whole progressive development of artistic culture on the completion of which they would come naturally to an agreement without any need of discussion. “I must ask Le Sidaner what he thinks of Poussin,” the lawyer remarked to me. “He’s a regular recluse, never opens his mouth, but I know how to get things out of him.”
“Anyhow,” Mme. de Cambremer went on, “I have a horror of sunsets, they’re so romantic, so operatic. That is why I can’t abide my mother-in-law’s house, with its tropical plants. You will see it, it’s just like a public garden at Monte-Carlo. That’s why I prefer your coast, here. It is more sombre, more sincere; there’s a little lane from which one doesn’t see the sea. On rainy days, there’s nothing but mud, it’s a little world apart. It’s just the same at Venice, I detest the Grand Canal and I don’t know anything so touching as the little alleys. But it’s all a question of one’s surroundings.” “But,” I remarked to her, feeling that the only way to rehabilitate Poussin in Mme. de Cambremer’s eyes was to inform her that he was
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