Marcel Proust: A Biography

MARCEL PROUST
In the happy fields of the Champs-Elysees, the third of the
gardens of his childhood, Marcel held court among his young
friends. Leaving prisoner's base to those who preferred it, he
would stroll along the gravel-walk by the Alcazar d'Ete talking
of Sarah Bernhardt and Mounet-Sully, and repeating the verses of
his favourite poets. He already possessed his amazing verbal
memory for poetry, and Musset, Hugo, Racine, Lamartine and
Baudelaire were among his repertoire. The day of the symbolists
had not yet arrived, though he knew the work of Verlaine; and
his chief enthusiasm among living poets was Leconte de Lisle,
greatest of the Parnassians, from whose prose translations of the
Iliad and Odyssey the Homeric argot of Bloch is derived. 'He
charmed his little companions,' says Robert Dreyfus, 'and he also
rather baffled us. But most astonished of all were the grown-ups,
who were unanimous in their rapture at the refinements of his
courtesy, the complications of his good intentions. I see him now,
very handsome and very sensitive to cold, smothered in jerseys
and mufflers, rushing to meet our mothers or grandmothers,
bowing at their approach and always finding the right words to
touch their hearts, whether he broached subjects usually reserved
for his elders, or merely enquired after their health: The novelist
Gyp saw him one day (though this was in the Pare Monceau)
pinched and shivering with cold, clutching a hot roast potato in
each of his frozen hands. In those days it was customary for
Parisian ladies to stop on their way to the Opera to buy roast
potatoes, which they would keep in their muffs as a substitute for
central heating during the performance; so this conduct was less
eccentric than it might now seem. When he left he would present
the potatoes to the chair-woman, by way of a tip: she grew to
expect them, and would have been hurt if he had forgotten.
Soon, however, he would see Marie and Nelly de Benardaky
hurrying through the trees ahead of the violet plume on the hat
of their governess; he abandoned his recitation of Leconte de
Lisle, or his talk of Sarah Bernhardt, and ran to join their game of
prisoner's base. He would always try to be on Marie's side and to
arrange for her to win; and once when he hesitated out of polite-
ness and made as if to join her sister, the good-natured Nelly
laughed and said "No, you're on Marie's side, it makes you so
happy." Marie gave a mocking but indulgent smile, and he felt
that his love, since it was thus publicly admitted, must surely be