MARCEL PROUSTfigured still more prominently in the programme; and when
Delafosse played everyone knew that the real guest of honour
was the Angel. As one of the many newspaper accounts put it,
whether innocently or not, 'M. Delafosse bore on his forehead the
kiss of M. de Montesquiou's Muse.' Round the temporary stage
in the garden, the Ephemeral Theatre as Montesquiou called it in
the printed programme, Proust now met many of the most
exclusive ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain: Comtesse Rosa
de FitzJames, for whom Mme de Chevigne had left him standing
in the Avenue Gabriel two years before, Comtesse Aimery de la
Rochefoucauld, Comtesse Potocka, Comtesse Melanie de
Pourtales, Marquise d' Hervey de Saint-Denis, and Comtesse
Greffulhe herself. Mme Greffulhe wore a mauve gown, the colour
of her favourite cattleyas (a preference which Proust later,
perhaps not without malice, transferred to Odette); and her
superb eyes shone, 'like black fireflies,' said Montesquiou, through
a veil to match. Proust was made to work for his introductions.
All afternoon he feverishly took notes on the ladies' dresses,
which he begged each of the lovely wearers to read and correct;
and after the party he hurried to the office of Le Gaulois with an
article ('A Literary Fere at Versailles') for next day's gossip
column. In the morning, alas, he found his article ruthlessly cut:
Mme Potocka was there, but stripped of her dress; Mme Howland
was gone altogether; and from the sentence which modestly began
'Among others present', the name of M. Marcel Proust had been
deleted.
The fete of 30 May 1894 was one of the crucial events of
Proust's youth. At last he had met several of the most brilliant
hostesses of the inner Faubourg Saint-Germain, including the
lady who was to supply important elements of both the Duchesse
and the Princesse de Guermantes. At breakfast next morning they
would read his appreciative account of their beauty and their
clothes; soon their invitation-cards would be stuck in the dining-
room mirror at 9 Boulevard Malesherbes. And he had seen them
gathered to do acquiescent homage to the latest homosexual
relationship of his powerful friend and sponsor. In the next few
months Proust would simultaneously reach the summit of the
Guermantes Way, and go down into the valley of the Cities of
the Plain.