PROUST'S SOCIETY
their titles and palaces, the splendor of their .pedigrees give
them a fairy tale quality which may be intentionally contrasted
with the banality of their conversation and lives,but which
nonetheless lingers in the reader' smihd as an attribute some–
how earned and merited by society people. It is illuminating
in this respect to read a fatuous little volume by Princess
Marthe Bibesco entitled "La Duchesse de Guermantes." In
Proust's portrait of Oriane she recognizes the blonde beauty,
the ancient lineage and the high style of her friend, Laure de
Chevigne, and she relates an anecdote about the latter that
might indeed have been taken from
Du Cote de Chez Guer–
mantes.
Madame de Chevigne, greeting her old friend, the
Grand Duchess Wladimir of Russia, treats her with a combina–
tion ·of old court courtesy and near impertinence that recalls the
relationship between the Duchesse de Guermantes and the Prin–
cess de Parme. Taking in the Grand Duchess's hat and dress in a
sweeping glance, she exclaims: "Possible, in St. Petersburg, Or
the Hague, or Copenhagen.
Impossible
in Paris. I take the
liberty of escorting Madame to the Rue de la Paix, to Paquin's
or to Worth's. Yes, now, immediately, at this moment! Gustave!
Gall Her -Imperial Highness's carriage!" This, admittedly,
is
'pureOriane, but Princess Bibesco has not a word to say
about the insipidity, the selfishness or the vanity of the
character with whom she
is
so proud to identify her old and
valued friend. Yet it is not possible (however tempting to
suppose) that a woman who has written three books on Proust
should have failed to finish his novel. Her attitude
is
simply
further evidence of how much of Proust's adoration of the
aristocratic way of life seeps through the meshes of his ana–
lytical net.
..: ' I
have been careful to Set down these criticisms of Protist's
picture of society because I wish to clear the way for a final
judgment of undiluted praise. For never, to my knowledge, in
fiction or outside of it, has there been so brilliant or so com-
