M. de Charlus in a shrill voice that rang out like a blow. “But I ordered champagne?” he said to the head waiter who had supposed he was obeying the order by placing by the diners two glasses of foaming liquid. “Yes, Sir.” “Take away that filth, which has no connection with the worst champagne in the world. It is the emetic known as cup, which consists, as a rule, of three rotten strawberries swimming in a mixture of vinegar and soda-water. Yes,” he went on, turning again to Morel, “you don’t seem to know what a title is. And even in the interpretation of the things you play best, you seem not to be aware of the mediumistic side.” “You mean to say?” asked Morel, who, not having understood one word of what the Baron had said, was afraid that he might be missing something of importance, such as an invitation to luncheon. M. de Charlus having failed to regard “You mean to say?” as a question, Morel, having in consequence received no answer, thought it best to change the conversation and to give it a sensual turn: “There, look at the fair girl selling the flowers you don’t like; I’m certain she’s got a little mistress. And the old woman dining at the table at the end, too.” “But how do you know all that?” asked M. de Charlus, amazed at Morel’s intuition. “Oh! I can spot them in an instant. If we went out together in a crowd, you would see that I never make a mistake.” And anyone looking at Morel at that moment, with his girlish air enshrined in his masculine beauty, would have understood the obscure divination which made him no less obvious to certain women than them to him. He was anxious to supplant Jupien, vaguely desirous of adding to his regular income the profits which, he supposed, the tailor derived from the Baron. “And with boys I am surer still, I could save you from making any mistake. We shall be having the fair soon at Balbec, we shall find lots of things there. And in Paris too, you’ll see, you’ll have a fine time.” But the inherited caution of a servant made him give a different turn to the sentence on which he had already embarked. So that M. de Charlus supposed that he was still referring to girls. “Listen,” said Morel, anxious to excite in a fashion which he considered less compromising for himself (albeit it was actually more immoral) the Baron’s senses, “what I should like would be to find a girl who was quite pure, make her fall in love with me, and take her virginity.” M. de Charlus could not refrain from pinching Morel’s ear affectionately, but added innocently: “What good would that be to you? If you took her maidenhead, you would be obliged to marry her.” “Marry her?” cried Morel, guessing that the Baron was fuddled, or else giving no thought to the man, more scrupulous in reality than he supposed, to whom he was speaking. “Marry her? Balls! I should promise, but once the little operation was performed, I should clear out and leave her.” M. de Charlus was in the habit, when a fiction was capable of causing him a momentary sensual pleasure, of believing in its truth, while keeping himself free to withdraw his credulity altogether a minute later, when his pleasure was at an end. “You would really do that?” he said to Morel with a laugh, squeezing him more tightly still. “And why not?” said Morel, seeing that he was not shocking the Baron by continuing to expound to him what was indeed one of his desires. “It is dangerous,” said M. de Charlus. “I should have my kit packed and ready, and buzz off and leave no address.” “And what about me?” asked M. de Charlus. “I should take you with me, of course,” Morel made haste to add, never having thought of what would become of the Baron who was the least of his responsibilities. “I say, there’s a kid I should love to try that game on, she’s a little seamstress who keeps a shop in M. le Due’s hotel.” “Jupien’s girl,” the Baron exclaimed, as the wine-waiter entered the room. “Oh! Never,” he added, whether because the presence of a third person had cooled his ardour, or because even in this sort of black mass in which he took a delight in defiling the most sacred things, he could not bring himself to allow the mention of people to whom he was bound by ties of friendship. “Jupien is a good man, the child is charming, it would be a shame to make them unhappy.” Morel felt that he had gone too far and was silent, but his gaze continued to fix itself in imagination upon the girl for whose benefit he had once begged me to address him as “dear great master” and from whom he had ordered a waistcoat. An industrious worker, the child had not taken any holiday, but I learned afterwards that while the violinist was in the neighbourhood of Balbec she never ceased to think of his handsome face, ennobled by the accident that having seen Morel in my company she had taken him for a “gentleman.”
“I never heard Chopin play,” said the Baron, “and yet I might have done so, I took lessons from Stamati, but he forbade me to go and hear the Master of the Nocturnes at my aunt Chimay’s.” “That was damned silly of him,” exclaimed Morel. “On the contrary,” M. de Charlus retorted warmly, in a shrill voice. “He showed his intelligence. He had realised that I had a ‘nature’ and that I would succumb to Chopin’s influence. It made no difference, because when I was quite young I gave up music, and everything else, for that matter. Besides one can more or less imagine him,” he added in a slow, nasal, drawling tone, “there are still people who did hear him, who can give you
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