The Cambridge Introduction to Marcel Proust - Adam A. Watt [50]
Before seeing him unguarded in the Guermantes’ courtyard, the Narrator had taken Charlus’s emphasis on virility and his loathing of effeminacy at face value; at the Princesse’s reception, however, alert now to the role-play that concealing secret identities obliges individuals to undertake, he dismantles false façades, attuned to the different levels of communication that can coexist on the social stage. Progressively he develops his ability to decipher the sign systems of the world in which he moves, which extend well beyond the domain of love and desire.
The guests’ conversations and interactions are revealing on many levels: Vaugoubert, the old ambassador, is a homosexual whose professional obligations have almost wholly blunted his ability to recognize those of his own kind. He and Charlus are intriguing cases of how circumstance and environment can lead to divergent developments in what may have been initially similar characters. The Duc de Guermantes, who spoke jovially with Swann at the close of The Guermantes Way, now, just a few hours later in the real time of the narrative, derides Swann’s dreyfusard position as one of ‘ingratitude’ towards the faubourg Saint-Germain which had for so long welcomed him as an equal (SG, 90; 1268). Swann is present but has been whisked off to the bottom of the garden where, rumour has it, the Prince is berating him for his Dreyfusism. In reality the Prince is taking the opportunity to tell his old friend that he shares his convictions, as does his wife (although they had each kept their thinking hidden for some time, fearing each other’s disapproval; SG, 120–31; 1288–95). The kaleidoscope, then, is turning.
Interwoven with the socio-political chatter are the often unspoken currents of desire. Charlus’s concentration on the face of the young Comte de Surgis is so profound as to make it resemble ‘some rebus, some riddle, some algebraic problem, of which he must try to penetrate the mystery’ (SG, 103; 1277). Saint-Loup sews seeds of amorous promise for the Narrator, speaking of the ‘stunning women’ one might find in ‘maisons de passe’ (houses of assignation, or brothels), citing as examples the aristocratic ‘Mademoiselle … d’Orgeville’ and ‘in a different class of goods … Mme Putbus’s chambermaid’ (SG, 108–9; 1280), both of whom become long-term fixations for the Narrator, although neither is ever met. The Narrator thinks he meets Mlle d’Orgeville in The Fugitive, only to be victim to one of the novel’s many cases of mistaken identity (F, 643–8; AD, 2027–31); later on, seeing the name of Mme Putbus in a hotel register is almost enough to keep him in Venice when he is due to leave (F, 748; AD, 2096).
The anecdotes and observations of Sodom and Gomorrah have much to teach us about desire, how it blinds us, the cruelties into which it pushes us, the insecurities and fears it instills in our minds, regardless of our sexual preferences. Charlus is said to have let a queen die ‘rather than miss an appointment with the hair-dresser who was to singe his hair for the benefit of a bus-conductor whom he found prodigiously intimidating’ (SG, 134; 1297). And the Narrator himself, returning home with the Duc and Duchesse, illustrates the rapid alterations of which desire is disarmingly capable. So close together are he and the Duchesse in the carriage (a proximity he had long only imagined) that she jokes about her accidentally treading on his feet being taken the wrong way, yet this leaves him unmoved for his mind is focused on Mlle d’Orgeville and Mme Putbus’s chambermaid (SG, 142–3; 1302). As a result the Duchesse, even in toe-trampling proximity, is no longer bewitching; but when she speaks slightingly of Mme Putbus, the Narrator’s devotion to these unknown figures suddenly dissolves. Mme de Guermantes invites him to the Princesse de Parme