SAINT-LOUP 291Unfortunately, less owing to any personal dislike than to their
consciousness of the utter incompatibility of their musical aims.
Hahn and Debussy were ineradicahly convinced of one another's
hatred and contempt; their salutations at the Cafe Weber became
more and more distant, until they ceased altogether. Debussy was
therefore inclined to distrust Proust and his group; and although
Proust exerted all his charm in conversation ("He's longwinded
and precious and a bit of an old woman," said Debussy), and
once even saw Debussy home in his cah, their relations remained
courteous but distant. Once Proust invited Debussy to dinner
at 45 Rue de Courcelles, to meet a mixed company of writers and
aristocrats; but Debussy, without ill-feeling, refused: "You see, I'm
an ahsolute bear in company. 1'd rather we just went on meeting
at Weber's. Don't take it to heart, my dear sir, I was born like
thisl" So Proust was compelled to revere this Vinteuil from afar.
On 9 August 1901 Prince Edmond de Polignac died. Pronst
attended his fnneral, and was moved by the tears of Princesse
Helene de Caraman-Chimay, and by the symbolism of the black
pall with the scarlet princely crown, bearing only the letter 'P':
the dead man had resigned all his individuality, and became a
simple Polignac.^1 Prince Edmond would never talk again to
Charles Haas (himself now near death) of their youth in the
Second Empire, or walk across his studio with the splendid
Comtesse Greffulhe to hear his own music played by a full
orchestra. Proust remembered his kindness at Amphion, the
recitals of Faure's sonata, so like Vinteuil's, at the Rue Cortam-
bert, his love of Venice-"the only city in the world where one
can enjoy a conversation with the window open," the Prince
would say-and he murmured, quoting Hamlet, "Good-night,
sweet prince." On the 31st the bereaved Princesse Winnaretta
asked Proust to call at tea-time to talk ahout her husband. One
evening at Lady Brooke's he had met Swinburne, who shrilly
declared: "I believe our families are related, and I'm flattered to
1 Proust remembered this scene for the burial of Saint-Loup at Combray:
'the church of Saint-Hilaire was hung with black palls on which, below the
princely crown, without any other initials to indicate Christian names or
titles, stood out the "Gil for the Guennantes he had in c!eath once more
become' (III, 851). Another image in the same paragraph-'the feudal
turret, emptied of its books, had become warlike again'-derives from
Proust's comparison of the Prince de Polignac to fa castle keep converted
into a library'.