Chapter /6
TIME BEGINS TO BE LOSTB
y the spring of 190 3 three more young noblemen had joined
the little band of Saint-Loups. Armand, Duc de Guiche, was
the half-brother of Elisabeth de Gramont (since 1896 wife of
Philibert, Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre), and son of Duc
Agenor by his second wife, Marguerite, daughter of Baron
Charles de Rothschild: Guiche was therefore, despite his exalted
birth on his father's side, half-Jewish. He was a tall, virile young
man of twenty-three, with dark, curly hair, pale skin and violet
eyes. He rode to hounds, played polo, painted, and already
pursued the scientific studies which were to bring him inter-
national fame in the fields of optics and aerodynamics. Guiche
met Proust early in March at Mme de Noailles's; he remembered
how Reynaldo Hahn sang songs by Duparc and Faure, chain-
smoked, and broke into the Marseillaise when Mathieu de N oailles
tiptoed in to say good-bye to his guests and leave for army
manceuvres. Proust, however, was more interested in the antics
of Lucien Daudet, who sat next to Guiche at dinner: demoralised
by his noble company 'he chattered with unprecedented volu-
bility and with all the joy of Mme Bovary crying "I've found a
lover 1 I've found a lover 1'" There was an awkward moment
when Guiche asked, apparently in all innocence, "Have you a
brother?" Lucien remained tongue-tied, for his brother, of
course, was the now rabidly anti-Semitic Leon. He would have
liked, Proust maliciously surmised, to reply: "No, certainly not,
and if you· should ever hear that someone named Daudet has
been saying nasty things about Rothschilds and Jews, he's no
relative of mine." But poor Lucien, transfixed by the implacable
eyes of his hostess, could only burble a truthful but uninformative
"Yes". Guiche had heard of Proust at Mme Straus's in his boy-
hood: "we invite him when we want someone witty to make up a
fourteenth I" Struck by the brilliance of his conversation, he soon
wrote to ask him to a party at his parent's house. 'My dear
Proust', he began; but Proust answered: 'of course, I realise you