168 MARCEL PROUST
devices. Proust reproduced the situation accurately in his novel.
The Narrator visits Mme de Villeparisis and dines at the Duchesse's
unknown to Charlus, who still hopes, like Mephistopheles
tempting Faust, to exact a mysterious and awful price for his
services; and the baron has the supreme mortification of meeting
hitn at the Princesse de Guermantes's, where, he had announced,
"they never invite anyone unless I intervene".1 Moreover,
Montesquiou was not altogether a desirable sponsor. It would
not be pleasant to be asked merely because a hostess was terrified
of annoying the Count, and in the invidious capacity of his latest
young man. Besides, if in a fit of enthusiasm Montesquiou com-
pelled everyone to invite a protege, he would soon in a fit of rage
forbid anyone ever to invite him again. The evidence suggests
that after the Delafosse fete, at which Proust met nearly all the
ladies mentioned in this chapter, he went everywhere unaided,
kept Montesquiou at a safe distance, and employed all his diplo-
macy in ensuring that the Count should not intervene. The
uneasy knowledge that he had not, after all, been indispensable,
was an important element in the mingled antipathy and admira-
tion with which Montesquiou ever after regarded his 'dear
Marcel'.