Marcel Proust

"Remembrance of Things Past" (In Search of Lost Time),

translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff (1889-1930)

Swann now wished to go home, but, just as he was making his escape, General de Froberville caught him and asked for an introduction to Mme. de Cambremer, and he was obliged to go back into the room to look for her.

“I say, Swann, I’d rather be married to that little woman than killed by savages, what do you say?”

The words ‘killed by savages’ pierced Swann’s aching heart; and at once he felt the need of continuing the conversation. “Ah!” he began, “some fine lives have been lost in that way... There was, you remember, that explorer whose remains Dumont d’Urville brought back, La Pérouse...” (and he was at once happy again, as though he had named Odette). “He was a fine character, and interests me very much, does La Pérouse,” he ended sadly.

“Oh, yes, of course, La Pérouse,” said the General. “It’s quite a well-known name. There’s a street called that.”

“Do you know anyone in the Rue La Pérouse?” asked Swann excitedly.

“Only Mme. de Chanlivault, the sister of that good fellow Chaussepierre. She gave a most amusing theatre-party the other evening. That’s a house that will be really smart some day, you’ll see!”

“Oh, so she lives in the Rue La Pérouse. It’s attractive; I like that street; it’s so sombre.”

“Indeed it isn’t. You can’t have been in it for a long time; it’s not at all sombre now; they’re beginning to build all round there.”

When Swann did finally introduce M. de Froberville to the young Mme. de Cambremer, since it was the first time that she had heard the General’s name, she hastily outlined upon her lips the smile of joy and surprise with which she would have greeted him if she had never, in the whole of her life, heard anything else; for, as she did not yet know all the friends of her new family, whenever anyone was presented to her, she assumed that he must be one of them, and thinking that she would shew her tact by appearing to have heard ‘such a lot about him’ since her marriage, she would hold out her hand with an air of hesitation which was meant as a proof at once of the inculcated reserve which she had to overcome and of the spontaneous friendliness which successfully overcame it. And so her parents-in-law, whom she still regarded as the most eminent pair in France, declared that she was an angel; all the more that they preferred to appear, in marrying her to their son, to have yielded to the attraction rather of her natural charm than of her considerable fortune.

“It’s easy to see that you’re a musician heart and soul, Madame,” said the General, alluding to the incident of the candle.