122 MARCEL PROUST
The three young men walked in the T uileries gardens in the
warm air of a new spring, or late at night endlessly saw one
another home. Edgar, Proust always remembered, was 'so
charming and witty and kind'; and though he would sometimes
rebuke Marcel's sentimentality or curiosity with cutting sarcasm,
he always made up for it with an affectionate glance or a shake of
the hand. All too soon, however, it was time for Aubert's return
to Geneva. He hoped for so much from life, and yet some
presentiment made him uneasy, dejected, engagingly appre-
hensive. Of one thing, nevertheless, he was quite certain: "I
shall come hack next year whatever happens," he said. But he
never did.
In August, when Proust was at Trouville with the Finalys,
Billy joined Aubert at Saint-Moritz. The weather was delightful,
they played tennis with a young Indian Rajah and climbed several
mountains; and then, only a few days after their parting, on 18
September 1892, Aubert died of appendicitis. He met his end with
extraordinary firmness; he sent Proust a keepsake through their
friend Jean Boissonnas; but he never had a reply to the two letters
he had written to Proust just before his illness began.
Instead, Proust could only write Billy a letter of condolence
which showed regret rather than grief. He was, posthumously, a
little jealous: Aubert, after all, had been Billy's friend, not his.
Now he must find an Aubert of his own, and make sure that Billy
knew about it: perhaps Billy could be made to feel jealous in
return? Already at Les F remonts, after receiving a ten-page letter
from an unnamed correspondent, he had teasingly informed
Billy, in a letter that Aubert would see: 'At last I've found the
tender, letter-writing friend of my dreams. It's true he only puts
one stamp on his envelopes, so I always have to pay 30 centimes-
but what wouldn't one do when one really likes a person?' Early
in 1893, when Billy had become a probationer in the French
Embassy at Berlin, Proust had found another friend, 'who is
everything to me that I should have been to X--, if he hadn't
been so unfeeling. I refer to the young, charming, intelligent,
kind, affectionate Robert de Flers.' In February he went with
Flers to the Lenten sermons, on 'Living for Others', of Abbe
Pierre Vignot, and greatly admired them, though not perhaps in
the sense in which the preacher intended. Afterwards he frequently
met the Abbe at the home of his Condorcet friend, Pierre