In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV

by Marcel Proust

  Presently the party broke up, and then M. de Charlus said to Morel: “I conclude from this whole affair, which has ended more happily than you deserved, that you do not know how to behave and that, at the expiry of your military service, I must take you back myself to your father, like the Archangel Raphael sent by God to the young Tobias.” And the Baron smiled with an air of magnanimity, and a joy which Morel, to whom the prospect of being thus led home afforded no pleasure, did not appear to share. In the exhilaration of comparing himself to the Archangel, and Morel to the son of Tobit, M. de Charlus no longer thought of the purpose of his remark, which had been to explore the ground to see whether, as he hoped, Morel would consent to come with him to Paris. Intoxicated by his love, or by his self-love, the Baron did not see or pretended not to see the violinist’s wry grimace, for, leaving him by himself in the café, he said to me with a proud smile: “Did you notice how, when I compared him to the son of Tobit, he became wild with joy? That was because, being extremely intelligent, he at once understood that the Father with whom he was henceforth to live was not his father after the flesh, who must be some horrible mustachioed valet, but his spiritual father, that is to say Myself. What a triumph for him! How proudly he reared his head! What joy he felt at having understood me! I am sure that he will now repeat day after day: ‘O God who didst give the blessed Archangel Raphael as guide to thy servant Tobias upon a long journey, grant to us, thy servants, that we may ever be protected by him and armed with his succour.’ I did not even need,” added the Baron, firmly convinced that he would one day sit before the throne of God, “to tell him that I was the heavenly messenger. He realised it for himself, and was struck dumb with joy!” And M. de Charlus (whom joy, on the contrary, did not deprive of speech), heedless of the passers-by who turned to stare at him, assuming that he must be a lunatic, cried out alone and at the top of his voice, raising his hands in the air: “Alleluia!”

  This reconciliation gave but a temporary respite to M. de Charlus’s torments. Often, when Morel had gone on manoeuvres too far away for M. de Charlus to be able to go and visit him or to send me to talk to him, he would write the Baron desperate and affectionate letters, in which he assured him that he would have to put an end to his life because, owing to a ghastly affair, he needed twenty-five thousand francs. He did not mention what this ghastly affair was, and had he done so, it would doubtless have been an invention. As far as the money was concerned, M. de Charlus would willingly have sent it had he not felt that it would make Charlie independent of him and free to receive the favours of someone else. And so he refused, and his telegrams had the dry, cutting tone of his voice. When he was certain of their effect, he longed for Morel to fall out with him for ever, for, knowing very well that it was the contrary that would happen, he could not help dwelling upon all the drawbacks that would be revived with this inevitable liaison. But if no answer came from Morel, he lay awake all night, had not a moment’s peace, so great is the number of the things of which we live in ignorance, and of the deep, inner realities that remain hidden from us. Then he would think up every conceivable supposition as to the enormity which had put Morel in need of twenty-five thousand francs, would give it every possible form, attach to it, one after another, a variety of proper names. I believe that at such moments M. de Charlus (in spite of the fact that his snobbishness, which was now diminishing, had already been overtaken if not outstripped by his increasing curiosity as to the ways of the people) must have recalled with a certain nostalgia the graceful, many-coloured whirl of the fashionable gatherings at which the most charming men and women sought his company only for the disinterested pleasure that it afforded them, where nobody would have dreamed of “doing him down,” of inventing a “ghastly affair” because of which one is prepared to take one’s life if one does not at once receive twenty-five thousand francs. I believe that then, and perhaps because he had after all remained more “Combray” at heart than myself, and had grafted a feudal dignity on to his Germanic arrogance, he must have felt that one cannot with impunity lose one’s heart to a servant, that the people are by no means the same thing as society: in short he did not “trust the people” as I have always done.

  The next station on the little railway, Maineville, reminds me of an incident in which Morel and M. de Charlus were concerned. Before I speak of it, I ought to mention that the halt of the train at Maineville (when one was escorting to Balbec an elegant new arrival who, to avoid giving trouble, preferred not to stay at La Raspelière) was the occasion of scenes less painful than that which I shall describe in a moment. The new arrival, having his light luggage with him in the train, generally found that the Grand Hotel was rather too far away, but, as there was nothing before Balbec except small beach-resorts with uncomfortable villas, had yielded to a preference for luxury and well-being and resigned himself to the long journey when, as the train came to a standstill at Maineville, he suddenly saw looming up in front of him the Palace, which he could never have suspected of being a house of ill fame. “Well, don’t let us go any further,” he would invariably say to Mme Cottard, a woman well-known for her practical judgment and sound advice. “There’s the very thing I want. What’s the point of going on to Balbec, where I certainly shan’t find anything better. I can tell at a glance that it has every modern comfort, and I can perfectly well invite Mme Verdurin there, for I intend, in return for her hospitality, to give a few little parties in her honour. She won’t have so far to come as if I stay at Balbec. It seems to me the very place for her, and for your wife, my dear Professor. There are bound to be reception rooms, and we shall bring the ladies there. Between you and me, I can’t imagine why Mme Verdurin didn’t come and settle here instead of taking La Raspelière. It’s far healthier than an old house like La Raspelière, which is bound to be damp, and isn’t clean either; they have no hot water laid on, one can never get a wash. Maineville strikes me as being far more agreeable. Mme Verdurin could have played her role as hostess here to perfection. However, tastes differ; anyhow I intend to remain here. Mme Cottard, won’t you come along with me? We shall have to be quick, of course, for the train will be starting again in a minute. You can pilot me through this establishment, which you doubtless know inside out, since you must often have visited it. It’s an ideal setting for you.” The others would have the greatest difficulty in making the unfortunate new arrival hold his tongue, and still more in preventing him from leaving the train, while he, with the obstinacy which often arises from a gaffe, would insist, would gather his luggage together and refuse to listen to a word until they had assured him that neither Mme Verdurin nor Mme Cottard would ever come to call upon him there. “Anyhow, I’m going to take up residence there. Mme Verdurin can write to me if she wishes to see me.”

  The incident that concerns Morel was of a more highly specialised order. There were others, but I confine myself at present, as the little train halts and the porter calls out “Doncières,” “Grattevast,” “Maineville” etc., to noting down the particular memory that the watering-place or garrison town recalls to me. I have already mentioned Maineville (media villa) and the importance that it had acquired from that luxurious house of prostitution which had recently been built there, not without arousing futile protests from the local mothers. But before I proceed to say why Maineville is associated in my memory with Morel and M. de Charlus, I must mention the disproportion (which I shall have occasion to examine more thoroughly later on) between the importance that Morel attached to keeping certain hours free, and the triviality of the occupations to which he pretended to devote them, this same disproportion recurring amid the explanations of another sort which he gave to M. de Charlus. He who played the disinterested artist for the Baron’s benefit (and might do so with impunity in view of the generosity of his patron), when he wished to have the evening to himself in order to give a lesson, etc., never failed to add to his excuse the following words, uttered with a smile of cupidity: “Besides, there may be forty francs to be got out of it. That’s not
to be sneezed at. You must let me go, because as you see it’s in my interest. Damn it all, I haven’t got a regular income like you, I have my way to make in the world, it’s a chance of earning a little money.” In professing his anxiety to give his lesson, Morel was not altogether insincere. For one thing, it is false to say that money has no colour. A new way of earning it gives a fresh lustre to coins that are tarnished with use. Had he really gone out to give a lesson, it is probable that a couple of louis handed to him as he left the house by a girl pupil would have produced a different effect on him from a couple of louis coming from the hand of M. de Charlus. Besides, for a couple of louis the richest of men would travel miles, which become leagues when one is the son of a valet. But frequently M. de Charlus had his doubts as to the reality of the violin lesson, doubts which were increased by the fact that often the musician would offer pretexts of another sort, entirely disinterested from the material point of view, and at the same time absurd. Thus Morel could not help presenting a picture of his life, but one that was intentionally, and unintentionally too, so obscured that only certain parts of it were distinguishable. For a whole month he placed himself at M. de Charlus’s disposal on condition that he might keep his evenings free, for he was anxious to put in a regular attendance at a course of algebra. Come and see M. de Charlus after his classes? Oh, that was impossible; the classes sometimes went on very late. “Even after two o’clock in the morning?” the Baron asked. “Sometimes.” “But you can learn algebra just as easily from a book.” “More easily, for I don’t get very much out of the lessons.” “Well then! Besides, algebra can’t be of any use to you.” “I like it. It soothes my nerves.” “It cannot be algebra that makes him ask for night leave,” M. de Charlus said to himself. “Can he be working for the police?” In any case Morel, whatever objection might be made, reserved certain evening hours, whether for algebra or for the violin. On one occasion it was for neither, but for the Prince de Guermantes who, having come down for a few days to that part of the coast to pay the Princesse de Luxembourg a visit, met the musician without knowing who he was or being known to him either, and offered him fifty francs to spend the night with him in the brothel at Maineville; a twofold pleasure for Morel, in the remuneration received from M. de Guermantes and in the delight of being surrounded by women who would flaunt their tawny breasts uncovered. In some way or other M. de Charlus got wind of what had occurred and of the place appointed, but did not discover the name of the seducer. Mad with jealousy, and in the hope of identifying the latter, he telegraphed to Jupien, who arrived two days later, and when, early the following week, Morel announced that he would again be absent, the Baron asked Jupien if he would undertake to bribe the woman who kept the establishment to hide them in some place where they could witness what occurred. “That’s all right. I’ll see to it, dearie,” Jupien assured the Baron. It is hard to imagine the extent to which this anxiety agitated the Baron’s mind, and by the very fact of doing so had momentarily enriched it. Love can thus be responsible for veritable geological upheavals of the mind. In that of M. de Charlus, which a few days earlier had resembled a plain so uniform that as far as the eye could reach it would have been impossible to make out an idea rising above the level surface, there had suddenly sprung into being, hard as stone, a range of mountains, but mountains as elaborately carved as if some sculptor, instead of quarrying and carting away the marble, had chiselled it on the spot, in which there writhed in vast titanic groups Fury, Jealousy, Curiosity, Envy, Hatred, Suffering, Pride, Terror and Love.

  Meanwhile the evening on which Morel was to be absent had come. Jupien’s mission had proved successful. He and the Baron were to be there about eleven o’clock, and would be put in a place of concealment. When they were still three streets away from this luxurious house of prostitution (to which people came from all the fashionable resorts in the neighbourhood), M. de Charlus had begun to walk on tiptoe, to disguise his voice, to beg Jupien not to speak so loud, lest Morel should hear them from inside. But, on creeping stealthily into the entrance hall, the Baron, who was not accustomed to places of the sort, found himself, to his terror and amazement, in a gathering more clamorous than the Stock Exchange or a saleroom. It was in vain that he begged the maids who gathered round him to moderate their voices; in any case their voices were drowned by the stream of auctioneering cries from an old “madame” in a very brown wig with the grave, wrinkled face of a notary or a Spanish priest, who kept shouting in a thunderous voice, ordering the doors to be alternately opened and shut, like a policeman regulating the flow of traffic: “Take this gentleman to number 28, the Spanish room.” “Let no more in.” “Open the door again, these gentlemen want Mademoiselle Noémie. She’s expecting them in the Persian parlour.” M. de Charlus was as terrified as a countryman who has to cross the boulevards; while, to take a simile infinitely less sacrilegious than the subject represented on the capitals of the porch of the old church of Couliville, the voices of the young maids repeated in a lower tone, unceasingly, the madame’s orders, like the catechisms that one hears schoolchildren chanting beneath the echoing vaults of a country church. Alarmed though he was, M. de Charlus, who in the street had trembled lest he should be heard, convinced in his own mind that Morel was at the window, was perhaps not so frightened after all in the din of those huge staircases on which one realised that from the rooms nothing could be seen. Coming at last to the end of his calvary, he found Mlle Noémie, who was to conceal him with Jupien but began by shutting him up in a sumptuously furnished Persian sitting-room from which he could see nothing at all. She told him that Morel had asked for some orangeade, and that as soon as he was served the two visitors would be taken to a room with a transparent panel. In the meantime, as she was wanted, she promised them, like a fairy godmother, that to help them to pass the time she was going to send them a “clever little lady.” For she herself had to go. The clever little lady wore a Persian wrapper, which she wanted to remove. M. de Charlus begged her to do nothing of the sort, and she rang for champagne which cost 40 francs a bottle. Morel, during this time, was in fact with the Prince de Guermantes; he had, for form’s sake, pretended to go into the wrong room by mistake, and had entered one in which there were two women, who had made haste to leave the two gentlemen undisturbed. M. de Charlus knew nothing of this, but stormed with rage, tried to open the doors, and sent for Mlle Noémie, who, hearing the clever little lady give M. de Charlus certain information about Morel which was not in accordance with what she herself had told Jupien, banished her promptly and presently sent, as a substitute for the clever little lady, a “dear little lady” who also showed them nothing but told them how respectable the house was and called, like her predecessor, for champagne. The Baron, foaming with rage, sent again for Mlle Noémie, who said to them: “Yes, it is taking rather long, the ladies are doing poses, he doesn’t look as if he wanted to do anything.” Finally, yielding to the promises and threats of the Baron, Mlle Noémie went away with an air of irritation, assuring them that they would not be kept waiting more than five minutes. The five minutes stretched to an hour, after which Noémie came and escorted an enraged Charlus and a disconsolate Jupien on tiptoe to a door which stood ajar, telling them: “You’ll see splendidly from here. However, it’s not very interesting just at present. He’s with three ladies, and he’s telling them about his army life.” At length the Baron was able to see through the cleft of the door and also the reflexion in the mirrors beyond. But a mortal terror forced him to lean back against the wall. It was indeed Morel that he saw before him, but, as though the pagan mysteries and magic spells still existed, it was rather the shade of Morel, Morel embalmed, not even Morel restored to life like Lazarus, an apparition of Morel, a phantom of Morel, Morel “walking” or “called up” in this room (in which the walls and couches everywhere repeated the emblems of sorcery), that was visible a few feet away from him, in profile. Morel had, as happens to the dead, lost all his colour; among these women, with whom one might have expected him to
be making merry, he remained livid, fixed in an artificial immobility; to drink the glass of champagne that stood before him, his listless arm tried in vain to reach out, and dropped back again. One had the impression of that ambiguous state implied by a religion which speaks of immortality but means thereby something that does not exclude extinction. The women were plying him with questions: “You see,” Mlle Noémie whispered to the Baron, “they’re talking to him about his army life. It’s amusing, isn’t it?”—here she laughed—“You’re glad you came? He’s calm, isn’t he,” she added, as though she were speaking of a dying man. The women’s questions came thick and fast, but Morel, inanimate, had not the strength to answer them. Even the miracle of a whispered word did not occur. M. de Charlus hesitated for barely a moment before he grasped what had really happened, namely that—whether from clumsiness on Jupien’s part when he had called to make the arrangements, or from the expansive power of secrets once confided which ensures that they are never kept, or from the natural indiscretion of these women, or from their fear of the police—Morel had been told that two gentlemen had paid a large sum to be allowed to spy on him, unseen hands had spirited away the Prince de Guermantes, metamorphosed into three women, and the unhappy Morel had been placed, trembling, paralysed with fear, in such a position that if M. de Charlus could scarcely see him, he, terrified, speechless, not daring to lift his glass for fear of letting it fall, had a perfect view of the Baron.