318 MARCEL PROUST
he was addressing her as Chere arnie, which before long became
Ma petite Louisa. Next month she was on holiday at Blois: 'how
I should like to compare the charming embroidery of one of those
blue or pink gowns that suit you so well with the stone lace-
work of the castle!' She must not think he is making love to her;
he knows that if he dared to try, she would only 'send me about
my business'; and besides, he would 'rather die than raise my
eyes to the adored beloved of a friend whose exquisite and noble
heart makes him dearer to me every day'. Nevertheless, he signs
his letter 'with something which would give me intoxicating
pleasure if it were to happen otherwise than by letter, my dear
Louisa-a tender kiss!' His wish was to come true a year later;
meanwhile, 'if Albu is with you, you might ask him to stop
calling me Proust!'
A few days before Antoine Bibesco's return to Paris in the
second week of March Proust met the Princesse de Polignac,
whom he had not seen since August 1901, at Princesse Helene de
Chimay's. He was pained to learn that she had just completed a
French rendering of Thoreau's Walden,! which he and Antoine
had planned to translate together in the early days of their
friendship: 'it took me back to the delicious time of our meeting,'
he told Antoine, 'and to hopes which since then have not entirely
been realised'. The delivery of the manuscript of La Bihle
d'Amiens to the Mercure de France, which owing to Robert's
wedding had already been postponed from 1 February to I
March, probably took place about this time. To greet Antoine's
return Proust had introduced him in an article on the salon of
Mme Greffulhe intended for the Paris edition of the New York
Herald, but transferred on Calmette's request to Le Figaro. In
an interview at the Figaro offices on 15 April Calmette persuaded
him, 'for reasons I cannot fathom', to postpone the article for a
fortnight, and in the end never printed it-most deplorably, for
all too little is known of Proust as Comtesse Greffulhe's guest.
He asked instead for an essay, which Proust had already finished,
on Mme Lemaire's salon; and Proust insisted on transferring to
this the paragraph about Antoine, 'although Ettemlac and
Enadrac [Calmette and Cardane] each separately begged me to do
nothing of the kind, because the Mme Greffuhle article was
1 Extracts from it appeared in the Renaissance Latine of 15 January 1904
over the Princesse's maiden name, W. Singer.