In the face of M. de Charlus’s refusal to explain himself, I was reduced to conjecture, though I knew that none of the possible explanations which came to mind might be the right one. Perhaps he did not remember; perhaps I had misheard what he had said that morning … It appeared more likely that it was his pride making him wish to avoid appearing to seek out people whom he despised, and that he therefore shrugged off on to them the idea that they should come to visit. But if he despised us, why had he wanted us to come, or rather, since he addressed not a syllable to me all evening and spoke only to my grandmother, why had he wanted her to come? Sitting almost behind her and Mme de Villeparisis, and all but hidden by them, as though in a theatre-box, he contented himself from time to time with glancing away from them and letting his penetrating eye rest on my face, which it investigated with an air of gravity and preoccupation, as though I was a manuscript full of indecipherable things.
If it had not been for his eyes, M. de Charlus’s face would have been similar to those of many handsome men. When at a later date Saint-Loup said, of other men of the Guermantes family, ‘I tell you, there’s not one of them who has my uncle Palamède’s air of breeding, that look of being every inch a peer,’ confirming for me that there was nothing mysterious or new in a thoroughbred air and aristocratic bearing, that these consisted of elements which I had already recognized without difficulty, without experiencing any special emotion, I was to sense the fading of one of my illusions. However, although M. de Charlus was careful to keep a hermetic seal on the expression of his face, to which a faint dusting of powder gave something theatrical, his eyes were like a crack in a wall, or a loophole in a fortification, which he had been unable to close up, and through which, depending on one’s position with regard to him, one felt oneself to be suddenly in the line of fire of some inner device that seemed potentially perilous, even for the person who, without having it completely under his control, carried it about with him in a state of permanent instability and readiness to explode; and the expression in his eyes, circumspect and incessantly uneasy, left on his face, whatever its fineness of design and construction, deep marks of fatigue, including dark circles hanging low under them, and made one think of an incognito, a disguise adopted by a powerful man threatened by some danger, or at times just of an individual who was dangerous, but tragic. I wished I could guess what this secret was that other men did not have to bear, which had made such an enigma of the very first look he had shot at me near the Casino. Now that I knew something of his family history, I could no longer entertain the notion that it was the glance of a thief; and having listened to his conversation, I was sure he was no madman. That he should be so cold to me, while being so amiable with my grandmother, might have nothing to do with any personal antipathy, for generally speaking he was as well disposed towards women (whose faults he could speak of without in any way departing from his habitual indulgence in their favour) as he was disgusted by men, and especially young men, his violent criticisms of whom were of the sort that some misogynists reserve for the opposite sex. When Saint-Loup happened to mention the names of two or three gigolos, who were relations or friends of his, M. de Charlus said, with an expression close to ferocity, which was markedly different from his customary lack of warmth, ‘They are nasty little beasts!’ I gathered that the thing he disliked most about young men of today was their effeminacy. ‘They are just women,’ he said scornfully. But the life led by any man would have seemed effeminate, compared to the kind of life he would have preferred to see men lead, ever more energetic and virile. (During the long walks which he enjoyed, after hiking for hours, his body burning, he would throw himself into icy streams.) He even disliked it if a man wore a ring on his finger. Not that this bias in favour of virility prevented him from having some of the finest qualities of sensibility. Mme de Villeparisis asked him to describe for my grandmother a château where Mme de Sévigné had stayed, adding that she detected a fair amount of writer’s posturing in the despair the letter-writer expresses at being separated from that tedious Mme de Grignan:58
‘There I must disagree, M. de Charlus said. It seems to me to be completely genuine. Also, it was a time when such sentiments were better appreciated. You might well think, my dear aunt, that in La Fontaine, the inhabitant of Monomotapa hurrying to see his friend, because of a dream in which he had seemed a little sad, or the pigeon who thinks the greatest of misfortunes is the absence of the other pigeon,59 are as exaggerated as Mme de Sévigné in her impatience for the moment when she can be alone with her daughter. Think of what she says on leaving her: “This separation pains me to the soul, and I feel it like an ache in the body. In absence, we make free with the hours: we live already in the time we long for.”60 Is it not beautiful?’ My grandmother was delighted to hear Mme de Sévigné’s Letters spoken of exactly as she would have spoken of them herself. She was amazed that a man could appreciate them so well; and she detected in M. de Charlus feminine sensitivity and intuitions. Later, when she and I were alone together, we agreed that he must have been profoundly influenced by a wife, his mother or perhaps a daughter, if he had had any. ‘A mistress,’ was what I thought, remembering the influence I believed Saint-Loup’s mistress must have had on him, which enabled me to have an idea of what power for the refinement of men is given to the women they live with.
‘Oh, once she was back together with her daughter, said Mme de Villeparisis, she probably had nothing to say to her.
– Nothing of the kind, said M. de Charlus. She would have said the sort of things which she says are “so slight that none, save you and I, ever notices them”.61 And in any case, she was with her, which as La Bruyère says is the most essential thing in life: “To be with those one loves is enough: to talk with them or not to talk with them is all the same.”62 He’s right – it is the only happiness, he added in a melancholy tone. Life is, alas, so badly arranged that we rarely enjoy that happiness. Mme de Sévigné was actually better off than most: she spent much of her life with a loved one.
– You’re forgetting that it wasn’t love, though – it was just her daughter.
– But the important thing in life is not whom one loves,’ he exclaimed, in a voice that was authoritative, peremptory, almost cutting. ‘The important thing is to love. The feelings of Mme de Sévigné for her daughter can more properly deserve the name of the passion depicted by Racine in Andromaque or Phèdre than the paltry goings-on between the young Sévigné and his mistresses. The same goes for the love of a mystic for his God. The limits we set to love are too restrictive and derive solely from our great ignorance of life.
– Do you really like Andromaque and Phèdre, then? Saint-Loup asked his uncle in a tone of slight disdain.
– There is more truth in a single tragedy by Racine than in all the melodramas of M. Victor Hugo put together, M. de Charlus replied.
– Aren’t fashionable people the limit? Saint-Loup murmured to me. Preferring Racine to Victor! I ask you!’ He was sincerely dejected by what his uncle had said, but the pleasure of saying ‘the limit’ and especially ‘I ask you’ was of some consolation to him.
In expressing these views on the sadness of the life lived without the loved one (views which led my grandmother to say to me later that the nephew of Mme de Villeparisis was in some ways a better judge of books than his aunt, and in particular that there was something in him that made him far superior to the majority of club-men), M. de Charlus not only showed a delicacy of sentiment which is indeed rarely to be found in a man; but his very voice, like certain contralto voices in which the middle register has been insufficiently trained and which, in song, sounds rather like an antiphonal duet between a young man and a woman, rose as he expressed these subtle insights to higher notes, took on an unexpected gentleness and seemed to echo choirs of brides and loving sisters. This bevy of girls which M. de Charlus, with his horror of effeminacy, would have been dismayed to know took over his voice, played a part not only in his interpretation and modulation of the passage
s full of sentiment. While he spoke, one could often hear their light laughter, the giggling of coquettes or schoolgirls full of pranks, mischief and teasing talk.
He spoke of an estate which had once belonged to his family, with a house in which Marie-Antoinette had slept and a park designed by Le Nôtre,63 now in the possession of the Israels, the wealthy financiers who had bought it. ‘Israel, at least that’s the name borne by the persons in question, although it does seem to me to be not a proper name, but a generic or ethnic term. Who knows, it may be that such people do not have names. Perhaps they are identified only in so far as they belong to a particular grouping? However! he shrieked. Just think – to have been the dwelling of the Guermantes and to be owned by the Israels! It puts one in mind of the room in the château at Blois where the guide showing you round says, “And now this ’ere is where your Mary Queen of Scots used to say her prayers and now it’s where I keeps me brooms”. Naturally, I now have not the slightest wish to have any knowledge of that house which has disgraced itself, just as I have no desire for contact with my cousin Clara de Chimay, who has left her husband.64 However, I do keep a photograph of the house as it was when unsullied, just as I have one of the Princesse de Chimay taken at a time when her great eyes were full of no one but my cousin. Photography acquires a certain dignity, which it does not normally have, when it is not just a reproduction of reality, but can show us things which no longer exist. I could give you a copy,’ he added to my grandmother, ‘since you have an interest in that manner of architecture.’ At that moment, noticing that his embroidered handkerchief was revealing part of its coloured edging, he thrust it back into his pocket with a startled glance, like a prudish but not innocent woman concealing bodily charms which in her excessive modesty she sees as wanton. ‘Can you credit, he said, that the first thing those Israel persons did was lay waste Le Nôtre’s park? Why, it’s like defacing a canvas by Poussin! The place for such people is behind bars. Although, of course, he added with a smile after a moment of silence, there are probably plenty of other reasons why they should be behind bars! However! I leave to your imagination the effect produced by an English-style garden in front of the architecture of such a house!
– Well, actually, said Mme de Villeparisis, the architecture of the house is the same as that of the Petit Trianon at Versailles. That didn’t stop Marie-Antoinette having her English garden in front of it.65
– Yes, said M. de Charlus. And it completely spoils the façade, which is by Gabriel. Obviously it would be an act of barbarism if anyone were nowadays to raze Marie-Antoinette’s English cottages. But whichever fad each day may bring, I do find it difficult to believe that a passing fancy of a Mme Israel could have the same value as a memento of the Queen.’
My grandmother had signalled to me that it was time for bed, despite the protests of Saint-Loup, who, to my great shame, had been referring in his uncle’s hearing to the feelings of evening sorrow which often afflicted me round about bed-time; and I was sure that M. de Charlus would think this was very unmanly of me. I delayed for a few minutes, then went off to bed. Not long afterwards, having heard a knock at my bedroom door and having asked who was there, I was surprised to hear the voice of M. de Charlus say in a sharp tone:
‘Charlus here. May I come in, Monsieur? Then, having stepped in and closed the door, he said in the same tone, Monsieur, my nephew said you might be rather unsettled before getting to sleep. He also tells me you are a great admirer of the books of Bergotte, and since I happened to have in my trunk a Bergotte which is very likely unfamiliar to you, I have brought it for you, in the hope that it may help you feel better at a time which you find distressful.’
I thanked M. de Charlus with all the effusion at my command and told him that my fear had been that Saint-Loup’s words about my disquiet at nightfall might have made him think me more of a fool than I was.
‘Not at all, he replied in a gentler voice. You may well be devoid of personal worth, but in that case you’re like nearly everyone else! However, at least for a time you have youth, and youth is always irresistible. Moreover, young man, it is the height of stupidity to think there is something ridiculous or reprehensible in feelings one does not share. I love the night and you say you dread it. I love the scent of roses, yet I have a friend in whom it sets off a fever. Do you suppose that, for me, that makes him a lesser man than I am? I strive to understand everything and do not allow myself to condemn anything. However! Do not feel too sorry for yourself. Not that I would ever maintain that such dejection as yours is not hard to bear – I know how much one can suffer for things which others could never understand. But at least you have your grandmother to whom to entrust your affection. You can see her all the time. And it is a permissible mode of affection, I mean a requited love. There are so many other modes of affection of which one cannot say the same!’
He was striding about the room, lifting or staring at an object here or there. I felt he had something he wanted to say to me but that he could not find the right words.
‘I have another volume of Bergotte with me,’ he said as he rang the bell. ‘I’ll just get it for you.’ A page appeared, to whom M. de Charlus said haughtily, ‘Fetch me the butler, boy. He’s the only one round here who’s clever enough to run an errand. – Do you mean M. Aimé, Monsieur? asked the page. – I do not know the fellow’s name! But now you mention it, yes, I seem to remember he’s called Aimé. Look sharp – it’s urgent! – He’ll be here straight away, Monsieur. I saw him downstairs just now,’ said the page, wishing to appear efficient. After a moment, he came back: ‘M. Aimé is in bed, Monsieur. But I could do the errand instead. – No, you must get him out of bed. – Monsieur, I can’t. He doesn’t sleep at the hotel. – In that case, leave us. – Monsieur, I said when the page had left, you are too kind – a single volume of Bergotte will suffice. – Yes, I agree, actually.’ M. de Charlus was still striding up and down. Several minutes went by; then, after hesitating for a few moments and making as though to leave several times, he swung round and made his exit, calling out in his former scathing voice, ‘I bid you good evening, Monsieur!’ After all the elevated sentiments I had heard him express that evening, he amazed me on the beach the following morning: just before he was to leave Balbec, and as I was about to go in for a bathe, he came down to tell me my grandmother would like to see me as soon as I came out of the water, and, as he spoke, he pinched me on the neck, with a most vulgar laugh and air of familiarity:
‘Who’s the naughty little rascal, then, who couldn’t care less about what his old granny wants?
– I adore her, Monsieur!
– Monsieur, he said icily, stepping back, you are young! But you should take advantage of your youth to learn two things: the first is that you should abstain from expressing sentiments which are too natural not to be taken for granted. And the second is that it is a mistake to get on one’s high horse and take offence at things said to one before one has properly understood their meaning. Had you taken that precaution just now, you might have contrived not to appear to be giving voice at random, speaking without rhyme or reason, and thereby compounding the ludicrousness of wearing that bathing- costume with anchors embroidered upon it! I lent you a volume of Bergotte which I need to have back. Send it to me within the hour by the butler of the hilarious and undeserved Christian name66 who, one assumes, is not in bed at this time of day. You have made me aware that, in speaking as I did last evening of the irresistibleness of youth, I spoke too soon – I should have done you a greater service had I pointed out youth’s foolishness, its inconsistencies and its wrong-headedness! I trust, Monsieur, that this little dressing-down will prove as beneficial to you as your dip in the sea. However! You must not stand about like that – you might catch cold. I bid you good day, sir!’
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower Page 43