SALVATION THROUGH RUSKIN 287for whose father in the 18)os she had written her memoirs (just
as Mme de Villeparisis's sister Mme de Beausergent had written
hers for the young.Basin de Guermantes), was a frequent dinner-
host of Proust's parents; and when Proust went through the family
papers after their death he found M. d'Osmond's photograph and
a bundle of his letters. One of Montesquiou's innumerable
cousins, Madeleine de Montesquiou, had married F ran<;oise de
Maille in 1888. Here then, at 9 Boulevard Malesherbes-just as
the Guermantes's as chiltelains of Combray were suggested by
the Goussencourts at Saint-Eman near 1l1iers-the Guermantes's
as neighbours of the Narrator in Paris were represented by the
Mailles. And according to his usual practice Proust left a clue
to the relationship, by giving the name Amanien (,Mama')
d'Osmond to the Guermantes cousin, whose death does not deter
the Due de Guermantes from going to a fancy-dress ball,! and
who in earlier days had been one of Odette's lovers, and had
fought a duel with the jealous Swann.^2
Proust returned from Venice towards the end of October 1900
to find the move already completed. His discomfort was none
the less extreme: as the Narrator remarks on the occasion, 'I
always found it as difficult to assimilate a new environment as I
found it easy to abandon an old.' But the next year is a barren
period in his biography, though not, it may be, in his life. Only
eight letters belonging to this time are available in print, and
there is a similar blank in the reminiscences of his friends. But
the lacuna may be to some extent real. He probably wrote fewer
letters because he was working on La Bible d' Amiens: the only
other comparable dearth of correspondence occurs in 191 I, when
his concentration on the first version of A la Recherche was at its
height. Moreover, this year coincides with a break in his friend-
ships: he had abandoned contact with many of his companions
of the 1890s, and had not yet found new. Perhaps he was too ill
to write: there is evidence of a serious illness in the autumn and
early winter of 1901. Whatever the reason, however, his life
vanishes into comparative obscurity during his first year in the
house where his parents were to die and Time was, at length, to
be lost.
1 II, 575
tIll, 300. "I had to act as Swann's second," says M. de Charlus, Cland
Osmond never forgave me. U