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By Root 598 0

fidelity to truth his artistic standard par excellence. Later he would write an essay attacking obscurity in literature. This truth telling—joined to his long sentences, his many comparisons, his resolution to mine every last ounce of gold from a subject—is what made his writing seem old-fashioned to his contemporaries and renders it eternally fresh to us. Most of the good writers of Proust’s generation, such as André Gide and Paul Claudel, were almost minimalists. But later generations are not sensitive to such fads, no more than are modern listeners bothered by the fact that Bach sounded tiresomely polyphonic and dated to his contemporaries.

After graduation Proust signed up on November 11, 1889, for a year of military service (by volunteering for one year he avoided being enlisted for three years of service). Four days later he was stationed in Orléans. In one of the photos of him from the period, he is walking with his fists clenched, his eyes burning under a military shako two sizes too big for him, his mouth outlined with a black mustache and a dab of goatee, his skinny body shrouded in a belted greatcoat. Although fifteen years later he would recall his year as a soldier with total delight, as “a paradise,” at the time he complained bitterly and his mother had to write him consoling, babying letters, telling him to think of the twelve months as twelve chocolate squares. . . .

In The Guermantes Way the “paradisal” side of military life is shown in the long chapter about Doncières (Orléans), where the Narrator pays a visit to the dashing young Dreyfusard and democratic aristocrat Robert de Saint-Loup. Every autobiographical novel inevitably mixes harsh truths about its first-person hero with a bit of wish fulfillment. In this military chapter the element of wish fulfillment becomes almost embarrassingly overwhelming. Not only is Saint-Loup thrilled that the Narrator has condescended to visit him, but all his fellow officers are equally impressed by the Narrator’s brilliant conversation. Ostensibly the Narrator, who has convinced himself he is in love with the duchesse de Guermantes (a haughty aristocrat of his mother’s age with whom he has never exchanged a word), comes to Doncières to persuade her nephew, Saint-Loup, to arrange an introduction to the aunt. But this mission seems to be just an excuse for the Narrator to enjoy the company of all these adoring men, who treat him as though he’s a delightful mascot—a genius but also a lovable child.

Civilians are forbidden to stay in the barracks with the soldiers, and Saint-Loup has found a hotel room for the Narrator. But when he realizes that the Narrator will pass a sleepless night all alone, he gets the rules bent. When Saint-Loup asks the Narrator if he’d rather spend the night with him, the Narrator replies:

“Oh, Robert, it’s cruel of you to be sarcastic about it, . . . You know it’s not possible, and you know how wretched I shall be over there.”

“Well, you flatter me!” he replied. “Because it actually occurred to me that you’d rather stay here tonight. And that is precisely what I went to ask the Captain.”

“And he has given you leave?” I cried.

“He hadn’t the slightest objection.”

“Oh! I adore him.”

“No, that would be going too far. But now, let me just get hold of my batman and tell him to see about our dinner,” he went on, while I turned away to hide my tears.

This scene scarcely reeks of military stoicism and seems highly implausible, but it is no doubt an accurate picture of how Proust wished his straight male friends would treat him. No wonder he would so often be disappointed in friendship.

In January 1890 his maternal grandmother died. The following fall, after his military service was over, Proust signed up to read law in Paris and to study politics at the famous “Sciences-Po,” the nickname for the Ecole libre des sciences politiques, a university comparable in prestige to Oxford or Harvard. He spent September at Cabourg, an elegant resort on the Norman coast that he later made famous under the name of Balbec. It is here that the Narrator