It would be a more serious objection, were there any foundation for it, to say that all this is alien to us, and that we ought to extract poetry from the truth that is close at hand. Art extracted from the most familiar reality does indeed exist and its domain is perhaps the largest of any. But it is none the less true that considerable interest, not to say beauty, may be found in actions inspired by a cast of mind so remote from anything we feel, from anything we believe, that they remain incomprehensible to us, displaying themselves before our eyes like a spectacle without rhyme or reason. What could be more poetic than Xerxes, son of Darius, ordering the sea to be scourged with rods for having engulfed his fleet?

It is certain that Morel, relying on the influence which his personal attractions gave him over the girl, communicated to her, as coming from himself, the Baron’s criticism, for the expression “stand you tea” disappeared as completely from the tailor’s shop as, from a salon, some intimate acquaintance who used to call daily but with whom, for one reason or another, the hostess has quarrelled or whom she wants to keep out of sight and meets only outside. M. de Charlus was pleased by the disappearance of “stand you tea.” He saw in it a proof of his own ascendancy over Morel and the removal of the one little blemish from the girl’s perfection. In short, like everyone of his kind, while genuinely fond of Morel and of the girl who was all but engaged to him, and an ardent advocate of their marriage, he thoroughly enjoyed his power to create, as and when he pleased, more or less inoffensive little scenes, outside and above which he himself remained as Olympian as his brother would have done. Morel had told M. de Charlus that he loved Jupien’s niece and wished to marry her, and the Baron enjoyed accompanying his young friend on visits in which he played the part of father-in-law to be, indulgent and discreet. Nothing pleased him better.

My personal opinion is that “stand you tea” had originated with Morel himself, and that in the blindness of her love the young seamstress had adopted an expression from her beloved which jarred horribly with her own pretty way of speaking. This way of speaking, the charming manners that went with it, and the patronage of M. de Charlus brought it about that many customers for whom she had worked received her as a friend, invited her to dinner, and introduced her to their friends, though the girl accepted their invitations only with the Baron’s permission and on the evenings that suited him. “A young seamstress received in society?” the reader will exclaim, “how improbable!” If one thinks about it, it was no less improbable that at one time Albertine should have come to see me at midnight, and that she should now be living with me. And yet this might perhaps have been improbable of anyone else, but not of Albertine, fatherless and motherless, leading so free a life that at first I had taken her, at Balbec, for the mistress of a racing cyclist, a girl whose nearest of kin was Mme Bontemps who in the old days, at Mme Swann’s, had admired in her niece only her bad manners and who now closed her eyes to anything that might rid her of the girl through a wealthy marriage from which a little of the wealth would trickle into the aunt’s pocket (in the highest society, very wellborn and very penurious mothers, having succeeded in finding rich brides for their sons, allow themselves to be kept by the young couples, and accept presents of furs, cars and money from daughters-in-law whom they do not like but whom they introduce to their friends).

The day may come when dressmakers will move in society—nor should I find it at all shocking. Jupien’s niece, being an exception, cannot yet be regarded as a portent, for one swallow does not make a summer. At all events, if the very modest advancement of Jupien’s niece did scandalise some people, Morel was not among them, for on certain points his stupidity was so intense that not only did he label “rather a fool” this girl who was a thousand times cleverer than himself, and foolish perhaps only in loving him, but he actually took to be adventuresses, dressmakers’ assistants in disguise playing at being ladies, the highly reputable ladies who invited her to their houses and whose invitations she accepted without a trace of vanity. Naturally these were not Guermantes, or even people who knew the Guermantes, but rich and elegant middle-class women broad-minded enough to feel that it is no disgrace to invite a dressmaker to your house and at the same time snobbish enough to derive some satisfaction from patronising a girl whom His Highness the Baron de Charlus was in the habit, in all propriety of course, of visiting daily.

Nothing could have pleased the Baron more than the idea of this marriage, for he felt that in this way Morel would not be taken from him. It appears that Jupien’s niece had been, when scarcely more than a child, “in trouble.” And M. de Charlus, while he sang her praises to Morel, would not have been averse to confiding this secret to his friend—who would have been furious—and thus sowing the seeds of discord. For M. de Charlus, although terribly spiteful, resembled a great many kind people who sing the praises of some man or woman to prove their own kindness, but would avoid like poison the soothing words, so rarely uttered, that would be capable of putting an end to strife. Notwithstanding this, the Baron refrained from making any insinuation, for two reasons. “If I tell him,” he said to himself, “that his lady-love is not spotless, his vanity will be hurt and he will be angry with me. Besides, how am I to know that he is not in love with her? If I say nothing, this flash in the pan will soon subside, I shall be able to control their relations as I choose, and he will love her only to the extent that I shall allow. If I tell him of his betrothed’s past transgression, who knows whether my Charlie may not still be sufficiently enamoured of her to become jealous? Then I shall by my own doing be converting a harmless and easily controlled flirtation into a serious passion, which is a difficult thing to manage.” For these reasons, M. de Charlus preserved a silence which had only the outward appearance of discretion, but was in another respect meritorious, since it is almost impossible for men of his sort to hold their tongues.

Moreover, the girl herself was delightful, and M. de Charlus, who found that she satisfied all the aesthetic interest that he was capable of taking in women, would have liked to have hundreds of photographs of her. Not such a fool as Morel, he was delighted to hear the names of the respectable ladies who invited her to their houses, and whom his social instinct was able to place, but he took good care (wishing to retain his hold over him) not to say so to Charlie, who, a complete oaf in this respect, continued to believe that, apart from the “violin class” and the Verdurins, there existed only the Guermantes and the few almost royal houses enumerated by the Baron, all the rest being but “dregs” or “scum.” Charlie interpreted these expressions of M. de Charlus literally.

What, you will say, M. de Charlus, awaited in vain every day of the year by so many ambassadors and duchesses, not dining with the Prince de Croy because one has to give precedence to the latter, M.