70
PARTISAN REVIEW
manners, that we may say that it is a function of his love."
Does Proust arrive at love, or at contempt and repudiation, by
the observation of manners?
The entire episode in Proust's novel is far too long to be quoted
in full but some direct presentation of it is necessary so that the
reader can judge for himself the issues in question. The Duchesse
de Guermantes has just asked Swann to go to Italy with her and
her husband ten months hence. Swann, pressed to say why he must
refuse, hesitantly tells her that he is very
ill,
that he may die at
any moment, that at most he will live only a few months more. But
the footman has just announced the carriage which is to take the
Duke and Duchess to dinner, and the Duke is quite impatient.
"What's that you say?" cried the Duchess, stopping for a moment
on her way to the carriage, and raising her fine eyes, their melancholy )
blue clouded by uncertainty. Placed for the first time in her life be–
tween two duties as incompatible as getting into her carriage and shew–
ing pity for a man who was about to die, she could find nothing in
the code of conventions that indicated the right line to follow, and not
knowing which to choose, felt it better to make a show of not believ–
ing that the alternatives need be seriously considered, so as to follow
the first, which demanded of her at the moment less effort, and
thought that the best way of settling the conflict would be to deny
that any existed. "You're joking," she said to Swann. "It would be a
joke in charming taste," replied he, ironically. "I don't know why I am
telling you this; I have never said a word to you before about my
ill–
ness. But as you asked me, and as I may die now at any moment ...
But whatever I do I mustn't make you late; you're dining out, remem–
ber," he added, because he knew that for other people their own social
obligations took precedence of the death of a friend and could put him–
self in her place by dint of his instinctive politeness. But that of the
Duchess enabled her to perceive in a vague way that the dinner
to
which she was going must count for less to Swann than his own death.
And so, while continuing on her way to the carriage, she let her
shoulders droop, saying: "Don't worry about our dinner. It's not of
any importance." But this put the Duke in a bad humor.
The Duke has heard Swann's news, but he says to his wife:
"You know very well that Mme. de Sainte-Euverte insists on sitting
down to table at eight o'clock sharp." Obedient to her husband,
