Free In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV by Marcel Proust Page B

calculated to make him seem on the one hand delighted with his existence—at a time when he was inwardly brooding over the mortifications of a career with no prospect of advancement and threatened with enforced retirement—and on the other hand young, virile and charming, when he could see and no longer dared to go and examine in the glass the wrinkles gathering on a face which he would have wished to remain infinitely seductive. Not that he hoped for real conquests, the mere thought of which filled him with terror on account of gossip, scandal, blackmail. Having gone from an almost infantile corruption to an absolute continence dating from the day on which his thoughts had turned to the Quai d’Orsay and he had begun to plan a great career for himself, he had the air of a caged animal, casting in every direction glances expressive of fear, craving and stupidity. This last was so dense that it did not occur to him that the street-arabs of his adolescence were boys no longer, and when a newsvendor
bawled in his face: “
La Presse
!” he shuddered with terror even more than with longing, imagining himself recognised and denounced.
    But in default of the pleasures sacrificed to the ingratitude of the Quai d’Orsay, M. de Vaugoubert—and it was for this that he was still anxious to please—was liable to sudden stirrings of the heart. He would pester the Ministry with endless letters, would employ every personal ruse, would draw shamelessly on the considerable credit of Mme de Vaugoubert (who, on account of her corpulence, her high birth, her masculine air, and above all the mediocrity of her husband, was reputed to be endowed with eminent capacities and to be herself for all practical purposes the minister), to introduce for no valid reason a young man destitute of all merit on to the staff of the legation. It is true that a few months or a few years later, the insignificant attaché had only to appear, without the least trace of any hostile intention, to have shown signs of coldness towards his chief for the latter, supposing himself scorned or betrayed, to devote the same hysterical ardour to punishing as formerly to gratifying him. He would move heaven and earth to have him recalled and the head of the political section would receive a letter daily, saying: “Why don’t you hurry up and rid me of the brute? Give him a dressing-down in his own interest. What he needs is a slice of humble pie.” The post of attaché at the court of King Theodosius was for that reason far from enjoyable. But in all other respects, thanks to his perfect common sense as a man of the world, M. de Vaugoubert was one of the best representatives of the French Government abroad. When a man who was reckoned a superior person, a Jacobin with an expert knowledge of all subjects, replaced him later on, it was not long before war broke out between France and the country over which that monarch reigned.
    M. de Vaugoubert, like M. de Charlus, did not care to be the first to greet one. Both of them preferred to “respond,” being constantly afraid of the gossip which the person to whom otherwise they would have offered their hand might have heard about them since their last meeting. In my case, M. de Vaugoubert had no need to ask himself this question, for I had gone up of my own accord to greet him, if only because of the difference in our ages. He replied with an air of wonder and delight, his eyes continuing to stray as though there had been a patch of forbidden clover to be grazed on either side of me. I felt that it would be more seemly to ask him to introduce me to Mme de Vaugoubert before effecting the introduction to the Prince, which I decided not to mention to him until afterwards. The idea of making me acquainted with his wife seemed to fill him with joy, for his own sake as well as for hers, and he led me with a resolute step towards the Marquise. Arriving in front of her, and indicating me with his hand and eyes, with every conceivable