In Search of Lost Time, Volume 5: The Captive, the Fugitive

by Marcel Proust

  “You know that he is to me,” the Baron went on, “a nice little friend, for whom I have the greatest affection, as I am sure” (did he doubt it, then, if he felt the need to say that he was sure?) “he has for me, but there’s nothing else between us, nothing of that sort, you understand, nothing of that sort,” said the Baron, as naturally as though he had been speaking of a woman. “Yes, he came in this morning to pull me out of bed. Though he knows that I hate being seen first thing in the morning, don’t you? Oh, it’s horrible, it flusters one so, one looks so perfectly hideous. Of course I’m no longer five-and-twenty, they won’t choose me to be Queen of the May, but still one does like to feel that one’s looking one’s best.”

  It is possible that the Baron was sincere when he spoke of Morel as a nice little friend, and that he was being even more truthful than he supposed when he said: “I’ve no idea what he does; I know nothing about his life.”

  Indeed we may mention (to anticipate by a few weeks before resuming our narrative at the point where M. de Charlus, Brichot and myself are arriving at Mme Verdurin’s front door), we may mention that shortly after this evening the Baron was plunged into a state of grief and stupefaction by a letter addressed to Morel which he had opened by mistake. This letter, which was also indirectly to cause me acute distress, was written by the actress Lea, notorious for her exclusive taste for women. And yet her letter to Morel (whom M. de Charlus had never even suspected of knowing her) was written in the most passionate terms. Its indelicacy prevents us from reproducing it here, but we may mention that Lea addressed him throughout in the feminine gender, with such expressions as “Go on with you, naughty girl!” or “Of course you’re one of us, you pretty sweetheart.” And in this letter reference was made to various other women who seemed to be no less Morel’s friends than Lea’s. At the same time, Morel’s sarcasm at the Baron’s expense and Lea’s at that of an officer who was keeping her, and of whom she said: “He keeps writing me letters begging me to be good! You bet! eh, my little white puss,” revealed to M. de Charlus a state of things no less unsuspected by him than were Morel’s peculiar and intimate relations with Lea. What most disturbed the Baron was the phrase “one of us.” Ignorant at first of its application, he had eventually, now many moons ago, learned that he himself was “one of them.” And now this notion that he had acquired was thrown back into question. When he had discovered that he was “one of them,” he had supposed this to mean that his tastes, as Saint-Simon says, did not lie in the direction of women. And here was this expression taking on, for Morel, an extension of meaning of which M. de Charlus was unaware, so much so that Morel gave proof, according to this letter, of being “one of them” by having the same taste as certain women for other women. From then on the Baron’s jealousy could no longer confine itself to the men of Morel’s acquaintance, but would have to extend to the women also. So, to be “one of them” meant not simply what he had hitherto assumed, but to belong to a whole vast section of the inhabitants of the planet, consisting of women as well as of men, of men loving not merely men but women also, and the Baron, in the face of this novel meaning of a phrase that was so familiar to him, felt himself tormented by an anxiety of the mind as well as of the heart, born of this twofold mystery which combined an enlargement of the field of his jealousy with the sudden inadequacy of a definition.

  M. de Charlus had never in his life been anything but an amateur. That is to say that incidents of this sort could never be of any use to him. He worked off the painful impression that they might make upon him in violent scenes in which he was a past-master of eloquence, or in crafty intrigues. But to a person endowed with the qualities of a Bergotte, for instance, they might have been of inestimable value. This may indeed explain to a certain extent (since we act blindly, but choose, like the lower animals, the plant that is good for us) why men like Bergotte generally surround themselves with women who are inferior, false and ill-natured. Their beauty is sufficient for the writer’s imagination, and excites his generosity, but does not in any way alter the nature of his mistresses, whose lives, situated thousands of feet below the level of his own, whose improbable connexions, whose lies, carried further and moreover in a different direction from what might have been expected, appear in occasional flashes. The lie, the perfect lie, about people we know, about the relations we have had with them, about our motive for some action, formulated in totally different terms, the lie as to what we are, whom we love, what we feel with regard to people who love us and believe that they have fashioned us in their own image because they keep on kissing us morning, noon and night—that lie is one of the few things in the world that can open windows for us on to what is new and unknown, that can awaken in us sleeping senses for the contemplation of universes that otherwise we should never have known. As far as M. de Charlus is concerned, it must be said that if he was stupefied to learn with regard to Morel a certain number of things which the latter had carefully concealed from him, he was not justified in concluding from this that it is a mistake to make friends with the lower orders. Indeed, in the concluding section of this work, we shall see M. de Charlus himself engaged in doing things which would have stupefied the members of his family and his friends far more than he could possibly have been stupefied by Léa’s revelations. (The revelation that he had found most painful had been that of a trip which Morel had made with Lea at a time when he had assured M. de Charlus that he was studying music in Germany. To build up his alibi he had made use of some obliging people to whom he had sent his letters in Germany, whence they were forwarded to M. de Charlus who, as it happened, was so positive that Morel was there that he had not even looked at the postmark.)

  But it is time to rejoin the Baron as he advances with Brichot and myself towards the Verdurins’ door.

  “And what,” he went on, turning to me, “has become of your young Hebrew friend whom we met at Douville? It occurred to me that, if you liked, one might perhaps invite him to the house one evening.” For M. de Charlus, who did not shrink from employing a private detective agency to spy on Morel’s every movement, for all the world like a husband or a lover, had not ceased to pay attention to other young men. The surveillance which he instructed one of his old servants to arrange for the agency to maintain over Morel was so indiscreet that his footmen thought they were being shadowed, and one of the housemaids lived in terror, no longer daring to go out into the street for fear of finding a detective at her heels. “She can do whatever she likes! Who’d waste time and money tailing her? As if her doings were of the slightest interest to us!” the old servant ironically exclaimed, for he was so passionately devoted to his master that although he in no way shared the Baron’s tastes, he had come in time, with such ardour did he employ himself in their service, to speak of them as though they were his own. “He is the very best of good fellows,” M. de Charlus would say of this old servant, for there is no one we appreciate more than a person who combines with other great virtues that of placing those virtues wholeheartedly at the service of our vices. It was of men alone that M. de Charlus was capable of feeling any jealousy so far as Morel was concerned. Women inspired in him none whatever. This is indeed an almost universal rule with the Charluses of this world. The love of the man they love for a woman is something else, which occurs in another animal species (a lion leaves tigers in peace), does not bother them, and if anything reassures them. Sometimes, it is true, in the case of those who exalt their inversion to the level of a priesthood, this love arouses disgust. These men resent their friends’ having succumbed to it, not as a betrayal but as a fall from grace. A Charlus of a different variety from the Baron would have been as indignant to find Morel having relations with a woman as to read in a newspaper that he, the interpreter of Bach and Handel, was going to play Puccini. This is in fact why the young men who acquiesce in the love of Charluses for mercenary reasons assure them that women inspire them only with disgust, just as they would tell a doctor that they never touch alcohol and care only for spring wat
er. But M. de Charlus, in this respect, departed to some extent from the general rule. Since he admired everything about Morel, the latter’s successes with women, causing him no offence, gave him the same joy as his successes on the concert platform or at cards. “But do you know, my dear fellow, he has women,” he would say, with an air of revelation, of scandal, possibly of envy, above all of admiration. “He’s extraordinary,” he would continue. “Wherever he goes, the most prominent whores have eyes for him alone. One notices it everywhere, whether it’s on the underground or in the theatre. It’s becoming such a bore! I can’t go out with him to a restaurant without the waiter bringing him notes from at least three women. And always pretty women too. Not that it’s anything to be wondered at. I was looking at him only yesterday, and I can quite understand them. He’s become so beautiful, he looks like a sort of Bronzino; he’s really marvellous.” But M. de Charlus liked to show that he loved Morel, and to persuade other people, possibly to persuade himself, that Morel loved him. He took a sort of pride in having Morel always with him, in spite of the damage the young man might do to his social position. For (and this is often the case with men of some social standing and snobbish to boot, who, in their vanity, sever all their social ties in order to be seen everywhere with a mistress, a demi-mondaine or a lady of tarnished reputation who is no longer received in society but with whom nevertheless it seems to them flattering to be associated) he had arrived at the stage at which self-esteem devotes all its energy to destroying the goals to which it has attained, whether because, under the influence of love, a man sees a sort of glamour, which he is alone in perceiving, in ostentatious relations with athe beloved object, or because, by the waning of social ambitions that have been gratified, and the rising tide of ancillary curiosities that are all the more absorbing for being platonic, the latter have not only reached but have passed the level at which the former found it difficult to sustain themselves.

  As for other young men, M. de Charlus found that the existence of Morel was no obstacle to his taste for them, and that indeed his brilliant reputation as a violinist or his growing fame as a composer and journalist might in certain instances provide a bait. If a young composer of pleasing appearance was introduced to the Baron, it was in Morel’s talents that he sought an opportunity of doing the newcomer a favour. “You must,” he would tell him, “bring me some of your work so that Morel can play it at a concert or on tour. There’s so little decent music written for the violin. It’s a godsend to find something new. And abroad they appreciate that sort of thing enormously. Even in the provinces there are little musical societies where they love music with a fervour and intelligence that are quite admirable.” Without any greater sincerity (for all this served only as bait and it was seldom that Morel condescended to fulfil these promises), Bloch having confessed that he was something of a poet (“in my idle momerits,” he had added with the sarcastic laugh with which he would accompany a trite remark when he could think of nothing original), M. de Charlus said to me: “You must tell your young Hebrew, since he writes verse, that he really must bring me some for Morel. For a composer that’s always the stumbling-block, finding something decent to set to music. One might even consider a libretto. It mightn’t be uninteresting, and would acquire a certain value from the distinction of the poet, from my patronage, from a whole concatenation of auxiliary circumstances, among which Morel’s talent would take the chief place. For he’s composing a lot just now, and writing too, and very nicely—I must talk to you about it. As for his talent as an executant (there, as you know, he’s already a real master), you shall see this evening how well the lad plays Vinteuil’s music. He staggers me; at his age, to have such understanding while remaining such a schoolboy, such an urchin! Oh, this evening is only to be a little rehearsal. The big affair is to come off in two or three days. But it will be much more distinguished this evening. And so we’re delighted that you’ve come,” he went on, using the royal plural. “The programme is so magnificent that I’ve advised Mme Verdurin to give two parties: one in a few days’ time, at which she will have all her own acquaintances, the other tonight at which the hostess is, as they say in legal parlance, ‘disseized.’ It is I who have issued the invitations, and I have collected a few people from another sphere, who may be useful to Charlie and whom it will be nice for the Verdurins to meet. It’s all very well, don’t you agree, to have the finest music played by the greatest artists, but the effect of the performance remains muffled, as though in cotton-wool, if the audience is composed of the milliner from across the way and the grocer from round the corner. You know what I think of the intellectual level of society people, but there are certain quite important roles which they can perform, among others the role which in public events devolves upon the press, and which is that of being an organ of dissemination. You understand what I mean: I have for instance invited my sister-in-law Oriane; it is not certain that she will come, but it is on the other hand certain that, if she does come, she will understand absolutely nothing. But one doesn’t ask her to understand, which is beyond her capacity, but to talk, a task for which she is admirably suited, and which she never fails to perform. The result? Tomorrow as ever is, instead of the silence of the milliner and the grocer, an animated conversation at the Mortemarts’ with Oriane telling everyone that she has heard the most marvellous music, that a certain Morel, and so forth, and indescribable rage among the people not invited, who will say: Palamède obviously thought we were not worth asking; but in any case, who are these people in whose house it happened?’—a counterblast quite as useful as Oriane’s praises, because Morel’s name keeps cropping up all the time and is finally engraved in the memory like a lesson one has read over a dozen times. All this forms a concatenation of circumstances which may be of value to the artist, and to the hostess, may serve as a sort of megaphone for an event which will thus be made audible to a wide public. It really is worth the trouble; you shall see what progress Charlie has made. And what is more, we’ve discovered a new talent in him, my dear fellow: he writes like an angel. Like an angel, I tell you.”

  M. de Charlus omitted to say that for some time past he had been employing Morel, like those great noblemen of the seventeenth century who scorned to sign and even to write their own lampoons, to compose certain vilely calumnious little paragraphs at the expense of Comtesse Mole. Their effrontery being apparent even to those who merely glanced at them, how much more cruel were they to the young woman herself, who found in them, so slyly introduced that nobody but herself saw the point, certain passages from her own letters, quoted verbatim but twisted in a way that made them as deadly as the cruellest revenge. They killed the young woman. But there is published every day in Paris, Balzac would tell us, a sort of spoken newspaper, more terrible than its printed rivals. We shall see later on that this oral press reduced to nothing the power of a Charlus who had fallen out of fashion, and exalted far above him a Morel who was not worth the millionth part of his former patron. But at least this intellectual fashion is naive and genuinely believes in the nullity of a gifted Charlus and in the incontestable authority of a crass Morel. The Baron was not so innocent in his implacable vindictiveness. Whence, no doubt, that bitter venom on his tongue the irruption of which seemed to dye his cheeks with jaundice when he was in a rage.

  “Since you know Bergotte,”10 M. de Charlus went on, “I thought that you might perhaps, by refreshing his memory with regard to the stripling’s writings, as it were collaborate with me, help me to create a concatenation of circumstances capable of fostering a twofold talent, that of a musician and a writer, which might one day acquire the prestige of that of Berlioz. As you know, the illustrious have often other things to think about, they are smothered in flattery, they take little interest except in themselves. But Bergotte, who is genuinely unpretentious and obliging, promised me that he would arrange for the Gaulois, or some such paper, to publish these little articles, a blend of the humorist and the musician, which are really very nicely done, and I shou
ld be so pleased if Charlie could combine with his violin this extra little hobby. I know I’m prone to exaggeration where he is concerned, like all the old sugar-mammies of the Conservatoire. What, my dear fellow, didn’t you know that? You’ve clearly never noticed my gullible side. I pace up and down for hours on end outside the examination hall. I’m as happy as a queen. As for Charlie’s prose, Bergotte assured me that it was really very good indeed.”