My grandmother was delighted to hear the Letters thus spoken of, exactly as she would have spoken of them herself. She was astonished that a man could understand them so well. She found in M. de Charlus a delicacy, a sensibility that were quite feminine. We said to each other afterwards, when we were by ourselves and discussed him together, that he must have come under the strong influence of a woman—his mother, or in later life his daughter if he had any children. “A mistress,” I thought to myself, remembering the influence which Saint-Loup’s seemed to have had over him and which enabled me to realise the degree to which men can be refined by the women with whom they live.
“Once she was with her daughter, she had probably nothing to say to her,” put in Mme de Villeparisis.
“Most certainly she had: if it was only what she calls ‘things so slight that nobody else would notice them but you and I.’ And anyhow she was with her. And La Bruyère. tells us that that is everything: ‘To be with the people one loves, to speak to them, not to speak to them, it is all the same.’ He is right: that is the only true happiness,” added M. de Charlus in a mournful voice, “and alas, life is so ill arranged that one very rarely experiences it. Mme de Sévigné was after all less to be pitied than most of us. She spent a great part of her life with the person whom she loved.”
“You forget that it wasn’t ‘love’ in her case, since it was her daughter.”
“But what matters in life is not whom or what one loves,” he went on, in a judicial, peremptory, almost cutting tone, “it is the fact of loving. What Mme de Sévigné felt for her daughter has a far better claim to rank with the passion that Racine described in Andromaque or Phèdre than the commonplace relations young Sévigné had with his mistresses. It’s the same with a mystic’s love for his God. The hard and fast lines with which we circumscribe love arise solely from our complete ignorance of life.”
“You like Andromaque and Phèdre that much?” Saint-Loup asked his uncle in a faintly contemptuous tone.
“There is more truth in a single tragedy of Racine than in all the dramatic works of Monsieur Victor Hugo,” replied M. de Charlus.
“Society people really are appalling,” Saint-Loup murmured in my ear. “Say what you like, to prefer Racine to Victor is a bit thick!” He was genuinely distressed by his uncle’s words, but the satisfaction of saying “say what you like” and better still “a bit thick” consoled him.
In these reflexions upon the sadness of having to live apart from those one loves (which were to lead my grandmother to say to me that Mme de Villeparisis’s nephew understood certain things a great deal better than his aunt, and moreover had something about him that set him far above the average clubman) M. de Charlus not only revealed a refinement of feeling such as men rarely show; his voice itself, like certain contralto voices in which the middle register has not been sufficiently cultivated, so that when they sing it sounds like an alternating duet between a young man and a woman, mounted, when he expressed these delicate sentiments, to its higher notes, took on an unexpected sweetness and seemed to embody choirs of betrothed maidens, of sisters, pouring out their fond feelings. But the bevy of young girls whom M. de Charlus in his horror of every kind of effeminacy would have been so distressed to learn that he gave the impression of sheltering thus within his voice did not confine themselves to the interpretation, the modulation of sentimental ditties. Often while M. de Charlus was talking one could hear their laughter, the shrill, fresh laughter of school-girls or coquettes twitting their companions with all the mischievousness of sharp tongues and quick wits.
He told us about a house that had belonged to his family, in which Marie-Antoinette had slept, with a park laid out by Le Nôtre, which now belonged to the Israels, the wealthy financiers, who had bought it. “Israel—at least that is the name these people go by, though it seems to me a generic, an ethnic term rather than a proper name. One cannot tell; possibly people of that sort do not have names, and are designated only by the collective title of the tribe to which they belong. It is of no importance! To have been the abode of the Guermantes and to belong to the Israels!!!” His voice rose. “It reminds me of a room in the Château of Blois where the caretaker who was showing me round said to me: ‘This is where Mary Stuart used to say her prayers. I use it to keep my brooms in.’ Naturally I wish to know no more of this house that has disgraced itself, any more than of my cousin Clara de Chimay who has left her husband. But I keep a photograph of the house, taken when it was still unspoiled, just as I keep one of the Princess before her large eyes had learned to gaze on anyone but my cousin. A photograph acquires something of the dignity which it ordinarily lacks when it ceases to be a reproduction of reality and shows us things that no longer exist. I could give you a copy, since you are interested in that style of architecture,” he said to my grandmother. At that moment, noticing that the embroidered handkerchief which he had in his pocket was exhibiting its coloured border, he thrust it sharply down out of sight with the scandalised air of a prudish but far from innocent lady concealing attractions which, by an excess of scrupulosity, she regards as indecent.
“Would you believe it?” he went on. “The first thing these people did was to destroy Le Nôtre’s park, which is as bad as slashing a picture by Poussin. For that alone, these Israels ought to be in prison. It is true,” he added with a smile, after a moment’s silence, “that there are probably plenty of other reasons why they should be there! In any case, you can imagine the effect of an English garden with that architecture.”
“But the house is in the same style as the Petit Trianon,” said Mme de Villeparisis, “and Marie-Antoinette had an English garden laid out there.”
“Which, after all, ruins Gabriel’s façade,” replied M. de Charlus. “Obviously, it would be an act of vandalism now to destroy the Hameau. But whatever may be the spirit of the age, I beg leave to doubt whether, in that respect, a whim of Mme Israels has the same justification as the memory of the Queen.”
Meanwhile my grandmother had been making signs to me to go up to bed, in spite of the urgent appeals of Saint-Loup who, to my utter shame, had alluded in front of M. de Charlus to the depression which used often to come upon me at night before I went to sleep, and which his uncle must regard as betokening a sad want of virility. I lingered a few moments still, then went upstairs, and was greatly surprised when, a little later, having heard a knock at my bedroom door and asked who was there, I heard the voice of M. de Charlus saying dryly: “It is Charlus. May I come in, Monsieur? Monsieur,” he continued in the same tone as soon as he had shut the door, “my nephew was saying just now that you were apt to be a little upset at night before going to sleep, and also that you were an admirer of Bergotte’s books. As I had one here in my luggage which you probably do not know, I have brought it to you to while away these moments during which you are unhappy.”
I thanked M. de Charlus warmly and told him that I had been afraid that what Saint-Loup had said to him about my distress at the approach of night would have made me appear in his eyes even more stupid than I was.
“Not at all,” he answered in a gentler voice. “You have not, perhaps, any personal merit—I’ve no idea, so few people have! But for a time at least you have youth, and that is always an attraction. Besides, Monsieur, the greatest folly of all is to mock or to condemn in others what one does not happen to feel oneself. I love the night, and you tell me that you dread it. I love the scent of roses, and I have a friend whom it throws into a fever. Do you suppose that for that reason I consider him inferior to me? I try to understand everything and I take care to condemn nothing. In short, you must not be too sorry for yourself; I do not say that these moods of depression are not painful, I know how much one can suffer from things which others would not understand. But at least you have placed your affection wisely in your grandmother. You see a great deal of her. And besides, it is a legitimate affection, I mean one that is repaid. There are so many of which that cannot be said!”
He walked up and d
own the room, looking at one thing, picking up another. I had the impression that he had something to tell me, and could not find the right words to express it.
“I have another volume of Bergotte here. I will have it fetched for you,” he went on, and rang the bell. Presently a page came. “Go and find me your head waiter. He is the only person here who is capable of performing an errand intelligently,” said M. de Charlus stiffly. “Monsieur Aimé, sir?” asked the page. “I cannot tell you his name. Ah yes, I remember now, I did hear him called Aimé. Run along, I’m in a hurry.” “He won’t be a minute, sir, I saw him downstairs just now,” said the page, anxious to appear efficient. A few minutes went by. The page returned. “Sir, M. Aimé has gone to bed. But I can take a message.” “No, you must get him out of bed.” “But I can’t do that, sir; he doesn’t sleep here.” “Then you can leave us alone.”
“But, Monsieur,” I said when the page had gone, “you are too kind; one volume of Bergotte will be quite enough.”
“That is just what I was thinking, after all.” M. de Charlus continued to walk up and down the room. Several minutes passed in this way, then after a few moments’ hesitation and several false starts, he swung sharply round and, in his earlier biting tone of voice, flung at me: “Good night, Monsieur!” and left the room.
After all the lofty sentiments which I had heard him express that evening, next day, which was the day of his departure, on the beach in the morning, as I was on my way down to bathe, when M. de Charlus came across to tell me that my grandmother was waiting for me to join her as soon as I left the water, I was greatly surprised to hear him say, pinching my neck as he spoke with a familiarity and a laugh that were frankly vulgar: “But he doesn’t care a fig for his old grandmother, does he, eh? Little rascal!”
“What, Monsieur! I adore her!”
“Monsieur,” he said stepping back a pace, and with a glacial air, “you are still young; you should profit by your youth to learn two things: first, to refrain from expressing sentiments that are too natural not to be taken for granted; and secondly not to rush into speech in reply to things that are said to you before you have penetrated their meaning. If you had taken this precaution a moment ago you would have saved yourself the appearance of speaking at cross-purposes like a deaf man, thereby adding a second absurdity to that of having anchors embroidered on your bathing-dress. I have lent you a book by Bergotte which I require. See that it is brought to me within the next hour by that head waiter with the absurd and inappropriate name, who, I suppose, is not in bed at this time of day. You make me realise that I was premature in speaking to you last night of the charms of youth. I should have done you a greater service had I pointed out to you its thoughtlessness, its inconsequence, and its want of comprehension. I hope, Monsieur, that this little douche will be no less salutary to you than your bathe. But don’t let me keep you standing: you may catch cold. Good day, Monsieur.”
No doubt he felt remorse for this speech, for some time later I received—in a morocco binding on the front of which was inlaid a panel of tooled leather representing in demi-relief a spray of forget-me-nots—the book which he had lent me, and which I had sent back to him, not by Aimé who was apparently off duty, but by the lift-boy.
M. de Charlus having gone, Robert and I were free at last to dine with Bloch. And I realised during this little party that the stories too readily admitted by our friend as funny were favourite stories of M. Bloch senior, and that the son’s “really remarkable person” was always one of his father’s friends whom he had so classified. There are a certain number of people whom we admire in our childhood, a father who is wittier than the rest of the family, a teacher who acquires credit in our eyes from the philosophy he reveals to us, a schoolfellow more advanced than we are (which was what Bloch had been to me) who despises the Musset of the Espoir en Dieu when we still admire it, and when we have reached Leconte or Claudel will be raving only about
At Saint-Blaise, at the Zuecca
You were well, you were well pleased …
to which he will add:
Padua is a place to adore
Where very great doctors of law …
But I prefer the polenta …
Goes past in her cloak of velour
La Toppatelle,
and of all the Nuits will remember only:
At Le Havre, facing the Atlantic,
At Venice, in the Lido’s gloom,
Where on the grass above a tomb
Comes to die the pale Adriatic.
So, whenever we confidently admire anyone, we collect from him and quote with admiration sayings vastly inferior to the sort which, left to our own judgment, we would sternly reject, just as the writer of a novel puts into it, on the pretext that they are true, “witticisms” and characters which in the living context are like a dead weight, mere padding. Saint-Simon’s portraits, composed by himself evidently without any self-admiration, are admirable, whereas the strokes of wit of the clever people he knew which he cites as being delightful are frankly mediocre when they have not become meaningless. He would have scorned to invent what he reports as so acute or so colourful when said by Mme Cornuel or Louis XIV, a point which is to be remarked also in many other writers, and is capable of various interpretations, of which it is enough to note but one for the present: namely, that in the state of mind in which we “observe” we are a long way below the level to which we rise when we create.
There was, then, embedded in my friend Bloch, a father Bloch who lagged forty years behind his son and told preposterous stories at which he laughed as loudly, inside my friend’s being, as did the real, visible, authentic Bloch senior, since to the laugh which the latter emitted, not without several times repeating the last word so that his audience might taste the full flavour of the story, was added the braying laugh with which the son never failed, at table, to greet his father’s anecdotes. Thus it came about that after saying the most intelligent things Bloch junior, manifesting the portion that he had inherited from his family, would tell us for the thirtieth time some of the gems which Bloch senior brought out only (together with his swallow-tail coat) on the solemn occasions on which Bloch junior brought someone to the house on whom it was worth while making an impression: one of his masters, a “chum” who had taken all the prizes, or, this evening, Saint-Loup and myself. For instance: “A military critic of great insight, who had brilliantly worked out, supporting them with infallible proofs, the reasons for which, in the Russo-Japanese war, the Japanese must inevitably be beaten and the Russians victorious,” or else: “He is an eminent gentleman who passes for a great financier in political circles and for a great politician in financial circles.” These stories were interchangeable with one about the Baron de Rothschild and one about Sir Rufus Israels, who were brought into the conversation in an equivocal manner which might let it be supposed that M. Bloch knew them personally.
I myself was taken in, and from the way in which M. Bloch spoke of Bergotte I assumed that he too was an old friend. In fact, all the famous people M. Bloch claimed to know he knew only “without actually knowing them,” from having seen them at a distance in the theatre or in the street. He imagined, moreover, that his own appearance, his name, his personality were not unknown to them, and that when they caught sight of him they had often to repress a furtive inclination to greet him. People in society, because they know men of talent in the flesh, because they have them to dinner in their houses, do not on that account understand them any better. But when one has lived to some extent in society, the silliness of its inhabitants makes one too desirous to live, makes one suppose too high a standard of intelligence, in the obscure circles in which people know only “without actually knowing.” I was to discover this when I introduced the topic of Bergotte.
M. Bloch was not alone in being a social success at home. My friend was even more so with his sisters, whom he continually twitted in hectoring tones, burying his face in his plate, and making them laugh until they cried. They had adop
ted their brother’s language, and spoke it fluently, as if it had been obligatory and the only form of speech that intelligent people could use. When we arrived, the eldest sister said to one of the younger ones: “Go, tell our sage father and our venerable mother!” “Whelps,” said Bloch, “I present to you the cavalier Saint-Loup, hurler of javelins, who is come for a few days from Doncières to the dwellings of polished stone, fruitful in horses.” And, since he was as vulgar as he was literate, his speech ended as a rule in some pleasantry of a less Homeric kind: “Come, draw closer your pepla with the fair clasps. What’s all this fandangle? Does your mother know you’re out?” And the misses Bloch collapsed in a tempest of laughter. I told their brother how much pleasure he had given me by recommending me to read Bergotte, whose books I had loved.
M. Bloch senior, who knew Bergotte only by sight, and Bergotte’s life only from what was common gossip, had a manner quite as indirect of making the acquaintance of his books, by the help of judgments that were by way of being literary. He lived in the world of approximations, where people salute in a void and criticise in error, a world where assurance, far from being tempered by ignorance and inaccuracy, is increased thereby. It is the propitious miracle of self-esteem that, since few of us can have brilliant connexions or profound attainments, those to whom they are denied still believe themselves to be the best endowed of men, because the optics of our social perspective make every grade of society seem the best to him who occupies it and who regards as less favoured than himself, ill-endowed, to be pitied, the greater men whom he names and calumniates without knowing them, judges and despises without understanding them. Even in cases where the multiplication of his modest personal advantages by self-esteem would not suffice to assure a man the share of happiness, superior to that accorded to others, which is essential to him, envy is always there to make up the balance. It is true that if envy finds expression in scornful phrases, we must translate “I have no wish to know him” by “I have no means of knowing him.” That is the intellectual meaning. But the emotional meaning is indeed, “I have no wish to know him.” The speaker knows that it is not true, but he does not, all the same, say it simply to deceive; he says it because it is what he feels, and that is sufficient to bridge the gulf, that is to say to make him happy.
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