MARCEL PROUSTof the most interesting pastimes of friendship was to introduce
one friend to another, and see whether they took together, or
disliked one another intensely: this was called 'operating a con-
junction'. An indispensable element of conversation betweer,
friends was gossip, to which Proust was already no stranger: the
code-word used as an assurance that one was correctly reporting
the words of a third party was 'sic'; and when a superlative was
required one said: 'sicissime'.
But the comradeship which for the others was a delightful
secret game was for Proust a serious and heart-rending passion.
Their playful group-friendship was uncongenial to him: he
would have preferred an exclusive union with Antoine, or, failing
him, with N onelef. When the others went out together and he
was confined to his bedroom, his despair was past bearing: 'I feel
the jealousy of a masculine Andromeda chained to his rock,' he
wrote to Antoine, 'tortured by the sight of Antoine Bibesco ever
receding, ever disappearing and multiplying himself, ever past
following.' Another complication, in December 1901, was that
Antoine, having written a never-to-be-staged play, La Lutte,
and made friends with the rising Jewish dramatist Henry Bernstein,
was engrossed in an affair with an actress: 'supposing I felt
particularly miserable about midnight,' wrote his rock-chained
friend, 'I wish you'd tell me where you're likely to be, so long as
it isn't in the arms of Salammho'. Occasionally Antoine would
try to console the sufferer with some material bribe; but 'Forgive
me,' wrote the unappeasable Marcel, 'if, the day before yesterday,
1 was too preoccupied by the coil of mythological vipers in your
mouth, and the dagger in your right hand, to notice that in your
left you were handing me a box of chocolates l' Sometimes he
tried to cow the fleeting Bibesco with severity: 'you were
perfectly revolting yesterday evening, my dear Telephas, and
your shares have slumped'. Soon for the first time Proust
announces the paradoxical truth, which is one of the leit-motivs
of A La Recherche, that friendship, like love, is an illusion: 'friend-
ship is an unreal thing. Renan says we must avoid friendship with
individuals, Emerson that we should progressively change every
friendship for a better. It's true that equally great writers have
said the opposite. But 1 am growing weary of insincerity and
friendship, two things which are practically identical.'
For a time during that winter, perhaps only in the vain hope