MARCEL PROUSTand me at Besan<;on'. The 9th was the day of the Rennes verdict
and at the Brancovans' that evening, as Proust inhaled his anti-
asthma powders in Constantin's room before dinner, he was
touched to hear Mme de N oailles weeping violently for Dreyfus
and crying "How could they do it? How could they bear to tell
him? What will the foreigners think of us now?" The harassed
Prince de Chimay had left, ostensibly for the opening of the
shooting season ("I don't think he'll find any game as worth
bagging as his wife," remarked Proust), but really to avoid
arguing about the Affair with his Dreyfusard in-laws. The Prince
de Polignac, however, Charles Haas's great friend, was most
affable, and enquired teasingly: "What's the good old syndicate
doing now, eh?"; for he pretended to believe Proust was in close
touch with the mythical secret society of Jews, free-masons and
atlleists to which the anti-Dreyfusards were convinced their
opponents belonged. After dinner there were the usual paper-
games, but even here the Affair reared its head and Mme de
Noailles, asked to give circumstantial details about Bertillon (the
handwriting expert who gave preposterous evidence against
Dreyfus), shocked her young friend to the core by writing: 'I
don't know any, it isn't as if I'd ever been to bed with him.'
On the 19th Proust had an inflammation in his wrist, and was
given cold compresses by Dr Cottet, who resembled Dr Cottard
in name only, for he was charming and cultured, and impressed
his patient by showing that he knew Vigny's La Maison du
Berger by heart. Perhaps there is some mystery in this wrist.
When Charlotte Clissette is staying the night at Jean Santeuil's
home, he comes to her bedside at midnight and tells her: "My
wrist is hurting me." She takes his hand, saying "Let me massage
it for you"; 'the expression in her eyes gave him the idea that she
was aware of giving him pleasure, and that this was the reason
for her action'; but when he tries to kiss her she threatens to ring. the belI.l Clearly this is a prefiguration of the Narrator's attempt
1 Part of the episode in Jean Santeuil is written on the back of an announce-
ment for the wedding of Jeanne Bailby (sister of Leon Bailby, for whose
newspaper La Pressc Proust was then writing an article) on 2.1 September- Proust asked his mother about the date of the wedding on 12
September, complained next day of having no news, and thanked her on the
20th for her 'kind trouble'. He must have received the announcement, there-
fore, at some thne after the 13th and before the 20th. See Jean Santeuil
vol. 3, 256 -^62