210 MARCEL PROUST
to act on his behalf but to bring his great friend, Gustave de
Borda, familiarly known as Sword-Thrust Borda. Thus, when the
NaIrator tells Albertine of a duel he has fought, she remarks:
"What very high-class seconds 1"1 Borda had been for many
years an unbeatable challenger, and later a much sought-after
second in society duels: his assistance was a guarantee of social
distinction and, indeed, of virility. This time, however, the
weapon was pistols. The combatants exchanged two ineffective
shots at a distance of twenty-five yards, probably, as decency
demanded except in a life-and-death quarrel, firing into the air.
As Le Figaro reported on the 7th, 'no one was hurt, and the
seconds pronounced that this meeting put an end to the dispute'.
"Proust behaved very pluckily, though he wasn't physically
strong," Beraud told Robert Dreyfus many years later; Reynaldo,
who had come to see his friend through, wrote in his diary:
'Marcel's coolness and firmness during these three days seemed
incompatible with his nervous disposition, but did not surprise
me in the least'; and Robert de Flers, who was also present, wrote
to Gaston de Caillavet: 'Marcel was brave, frail and charming.'
Next morning letters of congratulation flowed in, including one
from Willy, otherwise Henri Gauthier-Villars, the witty, shifty
first husband of the young Colette; but this had to be kept from
Mme Arman, who had quarrelled with Willy and had already
given Proust a severe wigging for not dropping his acquaintance.
After the duel Lorrain let Proust lie, but assailed Montesquiou
with redoubled venom. In the April of 1897 Count Robert was
much in view. His verses on Delafosse's piano-playing, entitled
Flower-Quintet, appeared in Le Figaro on the loth; and on the
23rd his portrait by Boldini-an almost spherical society-painter
of whom Mme Straus said "He looks like a toad in a strawbeny-
bed"-was one of the sensations of the Spring Salon at the
Champ de Mars. Boldini had done his utmost to represent the
Count, fiercely contemplating a blue-porcelain-handled walking-
cane which he clutched like a rapier, as the image of his ancestor
d' Artagnan. But the fluidity of the subject's attitude was quite
embarrassing, and it was noticeable that his cuff-links, too, were
of blue porcelain to match. 'This year,' wrote Lorrain, 'M. Robert
de Montesquiou has confided the task of reproducing his elegant
silhouette to M. Boldini, that habitual distorter of little women
1 II, lSS