300 MARCEL PROUST
Early in 1902 Marie Nordlinger returned to Paris, after an
absence of three and a half years, to work as a silversmith and
enamellist at the Art Nouveau workshops for the jeweller Siegfried
Bing. Once more she brought her gentle, unconscious guidance
to influence Proust's life: on one of the first days of spring she
visited the church of Saint-Loup-de-Naud near Provins, and
borrowed from the Abbe Louis Nappe his treatise comparing the
sculptures of its porch with those of Chartres. She passed the
Abbe's book on to Marcel, and so touched off a new series of
visits to gothic churches.
The first of these was to Chartres by rail, on a Sunday, prob-
ably 16 March 1902, with Fenelon and unnamed friends of
Fenelon; though it was preceded by a still earlier trip by the
Bibesco brothers in Emmanuel's motor-car, without Proust, to
churches whose names are not revealed. 'I have, alas,' Proust
remarked in a letter to Antoine on the Thursday before the
journey to Chartres, 'no tempting automobile to offer you, but
only a modest first-class railway ticket.' On Friday, to his great
disappointment, Antoine declined the proposal; but he tried to
make up for this unkindness by inviting Proust, for the first
time, to call him' tu'. He also promised to see Proust that evening
at Larue's, but spoilt even this by a further dig at his sensitive
friend. So Proust's reply, the first letter in which he says tu to
Antoine (thus providentially enabling the biographer to date the
earlier letters in which he had written 'yous') is one of bitter
reproach. 'Let this be the last time you say "Don't be afraid, I
shall only stay a minute", because my nerves are too much on
edge to bear that particular irony again. I'm keeping your letter,
and I shall compare it before your very eyes with one ofNonelef's,
and I shall have something to say on the subject which you will
think neither nice-though it is extremely so-nor just-though
it is the truth itself['
At Chartres that Sunday Proust studied the cathedral with the
help of Male's book, and then went on alone to Illiers, arranging
to rejoin his companions at Chartres the same evening. There
may have been family reasons fdr the visit to Illiers; but there
can be little doubt that Proust's own purpose was to see the
church of Saint-Jacques with the new eyes given him by Ruskin.
Previously he had always t~ken Saint-Jacques for granted. In the
scene of Sunday mass at Etreuilles in Jean Santeuil there is no