TIME BEGINS TO BE LOST 3'9exquisite just as it was'. So on II May Antoine had the pleasure
of seeing himself in the morning's Figaro 'interrogated on the
Macedonian question', amid Mme Lemaire's lilacs, by the
eminent politician Paul Deschanel. 'Everyone who says "Prince"
to this young diplomat with a great future feels like a character
in Racine, so inevitably does his mythological appearance remind
them of Achilles or Theseus. M. Mezieres, who is talking to him
now, looks like a high priest asking Apollo to deliver an oracle .•..
The prince's words, like the bees of Hymettus, are swift on the
wing and laden with delicious honey, but do not lack, for all
that, a certain sting!' At first, in the Mme Greffuhle article,
Proust had made Antoine talk not to Deschanel but to Paul
Hervieu, who could not be portrayed in Mme Lemaire's drawing-
room because he had quarrelled with the hostess. To make up
for this broken promise Proust took Hervieu to the second night
of the Caillavet and Flers comedy Le Sire de Vergy at the
Varietes on 16 April, where in his enthusiasm at his old friends'
success he 'narrowly missed blacking Hervieu's eye three times
over with my clapping hands'.
Since his outrush of sympathy in the previous autumn Proust's
ardour for Antoine had perceptibly cooled; he now pointedly
began his letters 'Man cher Antoine' instead of 'Man petit
Antoine'. Antoine was again, or still, in love with an actress;
Proust was making himself unhappy over Guiche and the
amiable but unforthcoming Albufera. Their friendship had gone
full circle and returned to its starting-point; yet, like two fortner
lovers tormenting one another with a meaningless renewal of
coquetry, they could not resist beginning again. This time
Antoine was the instigator; with his love of mystification and
playing with fire, he insisted on a pact that each should tell the
other his inmost secrets, and in particular should report any
scandal he might hear about his friend. It seemed to each,
naturally, that he gave away far too much in return for far too
little: 'I've made a thousand revelations to you, and you not the
least one to me,' complained Proust. Nevertheless, in his capacity
as the perfect friend, Antoine had betrayed at least two sufficiently
dangerous secrets. Porto-Riche, he confided, had said to him: "1
shouldn't see quite so much of Proust, ifI were you, it will only
give you a bad reputation." And Leon Daudet had declared: "1
can tell you, as a doctor, that Marcel Proust's ill-health is due to