to him, to remain on his
'high horse' and to cheat the desire that she had kindled in him, to
substitute a pleasure different from that which he might have tasted in
her company by writing to invite one of his former mistresses to come
and join him, would have seemed to him as cowardly an abdication in the
face of life, as stupid a renunciation of a new form of happiness as if,
instead of visiting the country where he was, he had shut himself up in
his own rooms and looked at 'views' of Paris. He did not immure himself
in the solid structure of his social relations, but had made of them, so
as to be able to set it up afresh upon new foundations wherever a woman
might take his fancy, one of those collapsible tents which explorers
carry about with them. Any part of it which was not portable or could
not be adapted to some fresh pleasure he would discard as valueless,
however enviable it might appear to others. How often had his credit
with a duchess, built up of the yearly accumulation of her desire to
do him some favour for which she had never found an opportunity, been
squandered in a moment by his calling upon her, in an indiscreetly
worded message, for a recommendation by telegraph which would put him
in touch at once with one of her agents whose daughter he had noticed in
the country, just as a starving man might barter a diamond for a crust
of bread. Indeed, when it was too late, he would laugh at himself for
it, for there was in his nature, redeemed by many rare refinements, an
element of clownishness. Then he belonged to that class of intelligent
men who have led a life of idleness, and who seek consolation and,
perhaps, an excuse in the idea, which their idleness offers to their
intelligence, of objects as worthy of their interest as any that could
be attained by art or learning, the idea that 'Life' contains situations
more interesting and more romantic than all the romances ever written.
So, at least, he would assure and had no difficulty in persuading the
more subtle among his friends in the fashionable world, notably the
Baron de Charlus, whom he liked to amuse with stories of the startling
adventures that had befallen him, such as when he had met a woman in the
train, and had taken her home with him, before discovering that she was
the sister of a reigning monarch, in whose hands were gathered, at that
moment, all the threads of European politics, of which he found himself
kept informed in the most delightful