88 MARCEL PROUST
with her favourite chrysanthemums and giving her lunch at the
most expensive restaurants. Jacques Emile Blanche hints that
Proust's affair with Mme Hayman was not merely platonic: it was
all a very long time ago, but Blanche, who was a friend of both
at this time, was perhaps in a position to know. It would not have
been the first nor the last time that Proust's relations with women
were physical; and it may be significant that in Jean Santeuif it is
the hero himself who undergoes with Mme Fran~oise S. the love-
affair which in A fa Recherche was transferred to Swann and
Odette.
But admission to Mme Hayman's drawing-room was no pass-
port to society, for although dukes were there they were never
accompanied by their duchesses. Even Mme de Caillavet's salon
was a mere picture-frame for Anatole France. It is time to visit in
turn the four other salons in which at this period, in 1891 and
1892, Proust began to move towards the Guerrnantes Way.
Jeanne Pouquet was not the only beloved whom Proust tried
to make jealous by confiding the open secrets of his intimacy with
Mme Hayman. The flowers that deluged his great-uncle's mistress
had already fallen, in the winter and spring after he left the army,
on Mme Straus: once he succeeded in bringing them even to her
bedside, where she sat, 'beautiful as an angel with a slight in-
disposition,' and scolded him for his extravagance. But now, he
cuttingly explained, she mustn't think he loved her less because
the flowers had stopped. His daily walks with Mme Hayman and
the lunches that follow are so expensive that (except a franc's
worth of poppies for Mme Lemaire) he can't afford to buy any!
Mme Straus had rebuked him for his passion and dismissed him:
now, in November 1891, she announced that they were friends
as before. "You are unique, as in everything else, in the art of
making hearts vibrate till they break," he sighed, and explained
that his love for her was now only platonic: however, "one should
always show great indulgence for platonic love." Gradually she
began to appreciate the intelligence of her little Cherubino; and
Proust, in turn, freed from the vilioly attraction of this beautiful
lady-for she resembled his mother in age, wit and Jewish birth,
and was the mother and aunt of his schoolfriends Bizet and
Halevy-became her friend for life. He began again to frequent
her salon, which was growing ever mor~ brilliant: the way into
the Faubourg Saint-Germain was opening before him.