The morning after Robert had told me
all these things about his uncle while waiting for him (as it happened in
vain), as I was passing the Casino alone on my way back to the hotel, I had the
sensation of being watched by somebody who was not far off. I turned my head
and saw a man of about forty, very tall and rather stout, with a very black
moustache, who, nervously slapping the leg of his trousers with a switch, was
staring at me, his eyes dilated with extreme attentiveness. From time to time
these eyes were shot through by a look of restless activity such as the sight
of a person they do not know excites only in men in whom, for whatever reason,
it inspires thoughts that would not occur to anyone else—madmen, for instance,
or spies. He darted a final glance at me that was at once bold, prudent, rapid
and profound, like a last shot which one fires at an enemy as one turns to
flee, and, after first looking all round him, suddenly adopting an absent and
lofty air, with an abrupt revolution of his whole person he turned towards a
playbill in the reading of which he became absorbed, while he hummed a tune and
fingered the moss-rose in his buttonhole. He drew from his pocket a note-book
in which he appeared to be taking down the title of the performance that was
announced, looked at his watch two or three times, pulled down over his eyes a
black straw hat the brim of which he extended with his hand held out over it
like an eye-shade, as though to see whether someone was coming at last, made
the perfunctory gesture of annoyance by which people mean to show that they
have waited long enough, although they never make it when they are really
waiting, then pushing back his hat and exposing a scalp cropped close except at
the sides where he allowed a pair of waved “pigeon’s-wings” to grow quite long,
he emitted the loud panting breath that people exhale not when they are too hot
but when they wish it to be thought that they are too hot. He gave me the impression
of a hotel crook who, having been watching my grandmother and myself for some
days, and planning to rob us, had just discovered that I had caught him in the
act of spying on me. Perhaps he was only seeking by his new attitude to express
abstractedness and detachment in order to put me off the scent, but it was with
an exaggeration so aggressive that his object appeared to be—at least as much
as the dissipating of the suspicions he might have aroused in me—to avenge a
humiliation which I must unwittingly have inflicted on him, to give me the idea
not so much that he had not seen me as that I was an object of too little
importance to attract his attention. He threw back his shoulders with an air of
bravado, pursed his lips, twisted his moustache, and adjusted his face into an
expression that was at once indifferent, harsh, and almost insulting. So much
so that I took him at one moment for a thief and at another for a lunatic. And
yet his scrupulously ordered attire was far more sober and far more simple than
that of any of the summer visitors I saw at Balbec, and reassured me as to my
own suit, so often humiliated by the usual dazzling whiteness of their holiday
garb. But my grandmother was coming towards me, we took a turn together, and I
was waiting for her, an hour later, outside the hotel into which she had gone
for a moment, when I saw emerge from it Mme de Villeparisis with Robert de
Saint-Loup and the stranger who had stared at me so intently outside the
Casino. Swift as a lightning-flash his look shot through me, just as at that
moment when I first noticed him, and returned, as though he had not seen me, to
hover, slightly lowered, before his eyes, deadened, like the neutral look which
feigns to see nothing without and is incapable of reporting anything to the
mind within, the look which expresses merely the satisfaction of feeling round
it the eyelids which it keeps apart with its beatific roundness, the devout and
sanctimonious look that we see on the faces of certain hypocrites, the smug
look on those of certain fools. I saw that he had changed his clothes. The suit
he was wearing was darker even than the other; and no doubt true elegance lies
nearer to simplicity than false; but there was something more: from close at
hand one felt that if colour was almost entirely absent from these garments it
was not because he who had banished it from them was indifferent to it but
rather because for some reason he forbade himself the enjoyment of it. And the
sobriety which they displayed seemed to be of the kind that comes from
obedience to a rule of diet rather than from lack of appetite. A dark green
thread harmonised, in the stuff of his trousers, with the stripe on his socks,
with a refinement which betrayed the vivacity of a taste that was everywhere
else subdued, to which this single concession had been made out of tolerance,
while a spot of red on his tie was imperceptible, like a liberty which one
dares not take.
“How are you? Let me introduce my
nephew, the Baron de Guermantes,” Mme de Villeparisis said to me, while the
stranger, without looking at me, muttering a vague “Charmed!” which he followed
with a “H’m, h’m, h’m,” to make his affability seem somehow forced, and
crooking his little finger, forefinger and thumb, held out to me his middle and
ring fingers, destitute of rings, which I clasped through his suede glove;
then, without lifting his eyes to my face, he turned towards Mme de
Villeparisis.
“Good gracious, I shall be
forgetting my own name next!” she exclaimed with a laugh. “Here am I calling you
Baron de Guermantes. Let me introduce the Baron de Charlus. But after all, it’s
not a very serious mistake,” she went on, “for you’re a thorough Guermantes all
the same.”
By this time my grandmother had
reappeared, and we all set out together. Saint-Loup’s uncle declined to honour
me not only with a word but with so much as a look in my direction. If he
stared strangers out of countenance (and during this short excursion he two or
three times hurled his terrible and searching scrutiny like a sounding-lead at
insignificant people of the most humble extraction who happened to pass), on
the other hand he never for a moment, if I was to judge by myself, looked at
persons whom he knew—as a detective on a secret mission might except his
personal friends from his professional vigilance. Leaving my grandmother, Mme
de Villeparisis and him to talk to one another, I fell behind with Saint-Loup.
“Tell me, am I right in thinking I
heard Mme de Villeparisis say just now to your uncle that he was a Guermantes?”
“Of course he is: Palamède de
Guermantes.”
“Not the same Guermantes who have a
place near Combray, and claim descent from Geneviève de Brabant?”
“Most certainly: my uncle, who is
the very last word in heraldry and all that sort of thing, would tell you that our
‘cry’, our war-cry, that is to say, which was changed afterwards to ‘Passavant’
was originally ‘Combraysis,’” he said, smiling so as not to appear to be
priding himself on this prerogative of a “cry,” which only the quasi-royal
houses, the great chiefs of feudal bands, enjoyed. “It’s his brother who has
the place now.”
(…)
Outside the Grand Hotel the three
Guermantes left us; they were going to luncheon with the Princesse de
Luxembourg. While my grandmother was saying good-bye to Mme de Villeparisis and
Saint-Loup to my grandmother, M. de Charlus, who up till then had not addressed
a single word to me, drew back from the group and arriving at my side, said to
me: “I shall be taking tea this evening after dinner in my aunt Villeparisis’s
room. I hope that you will give me the pleasure of seeing you there with your
grandmother.” With which he rejoined the Marquise.
(…)
I had supposed that in thus inviting
us to take tea with his aunt, whom I never doubted that he would have warned of
our coming, M. de Charlus wished to make amends for the impoliteness which he
had shown me during our walk that morning. But when, on our entering Mme de
Villeparisis’s room, I attempted to greet her nephew, for all that I walked
right round him while in shrill accents he was telling a somewhat spiteful
story about one of his relatives, I could not succeed in catching his eye. I
decided to say “Good evening” to him, and fairly loud, to warn him of my
presence; but I realised that he had observed it, for before ever a word had passed
my lips, just as I was beginning to bow to him, I saw his two fingers held out
for me to shake without his having turned to look at me or paused in his story.
He had evidently seen me, without letting it appear that he had, and I noticed
then that his eyes, which were never fixed on the person to whom he was
speaking, strayed perpetually in all directions, like those of certain
frightened animals, or those of street hawkers who, while delivering their
patter and displaying their illicit merchandise, keep a sharp look-out, though
without turning their heads, on the different points of the horizon from which
the police may appear at any moment. At the same time I was a little surprised
to find that Mme de Villeparisis, while glad to see us, did not seem to have
been expecting us, and I was still more surprised to hear M. de Charlus say to
my grandmother: “Ah! what a capital idea of yours to come and pay us a visit!
Charming of them, is it not, my dear aunt?” No doubt he had noticed his aunt’s
surprise at our entry and thought, as a man accustomed to set the tone, that it
would be enough to transform that surprise into joy were he to show that he
himself felt it, that it was indeed the feeling which our arrival there ought
to prompt. In which he calculated wisely; for Mme de Villeparisis, who had a
high opinion of her nephew and knew how difficult it was to please him,
appeared suddenly to have found new attractions in my grandmother and welcomed
her with open arms. But I failed to understand how M. de Charlus could, in the
space of a few hours, have forgotten the invitation—so curt but apparently so
intentional, so premeditated—which he addressed to me that same morning, or why
he called a “capital idea” on my grandmother’s part an idea that had been entirely
his own. With a regard for accuracy which I retained until I had reached the
age at which I realised that it was not by questioning him that one learns the
truth of what another man has had in mind, and that the risk of
misunderstanding which will probably pass unobserved is less than that which
may come from a purblind insistence: “But, Monsieur,” I reminded him, “you
remember, surely, that it was you who asked me if we would come round this
evening?” Not a sound, not a movement betrayed that M. de Charlus had so much
as heard my question. Seeing which, I repeated it, like diplomats or like young
men after a misunderstanding who endeavour, with untiring and unrewarded zeal,
to obtain an explanation which their adversary is determined not to give them.
Still M. de Charlus answered me not a word. I seemed to see hovering upon his
lips the smile of those who from a great height pass judgment on the character
and breeding of their inferiors.
Since he refused all explanation, I
tried to provide one for myself, but succeeded only in hesitating between
several, none of which might have been the right one. Perhaps he did not
remember, or perhaps it was I who had failed to understand what he had said to
me that morning… More probably, in his pride, he did not wish to appear to have
sought the company of people he despised, and preferred to cast upon them the
responsibility for their intrusion. But then, if he despised us, why had he
been so anxious that we should come, or rather that my grandmother should come,
for of the two of us it was to her alone that he spoke that evening, and never
once to me? Talking with the utmost animation to her, as also to Mme de
Villeparisis, hiding, so to speak, behind them as though he were seated at the
back of a theatre-box, he merely turned from them every now and then the
searching gaze of his penetrating eyes and fastened it on my face, with the
same gravity, the same air of preoccupation, as if it had been a manuscript
difficult to decipher.
No doubt, had it not been for those
eyes, M. de Charlus’s face would have been similar to the faces of many
good-looking men. And when Saint-Loup, speaking to me of various other
Guermantes, said on a later occasion: “Admittedly, they don’t have that
thoroughbred air, that look of being noblemen to their finger-tips, that uncle
Palamède has,” confirming my suspicion that a thoroughbred air and aristocratic
distinction were not something mysterious and new but consisted in elements
which I had recognised without difficulty and without receiving any particular
impression from them, I was to feel that another of my illusions had been
shattered. But however much M. de Charlus tried to seal hermetically the
expression on that face, to which a light coating of powder lent a faintly
theatrical aspect, the eyes were like two crevices, two loop-holes which alone
he had failed to block, and through which, according to one’s position in
relation to him, one suddenly felt oneself in the path of some hidden weapon
which seemed to bode no good, even to him who, without being altogether master
of it, carried it within himself in a state of precarious equilibrium and
always on the verge of explosion; and the circumspect and unceasingly restless
expression of those eyes, with all the signs of exhaustion which the heavy
pouches beneath them stamped upon his face, however carefully he might compose
and regulate it, made one think of some incognito, some disguise assumed by a
powerful man in danger, or merely by a dangerous—but tragic—individual. I
should have liked to divine what was this secret which other men did not carry
in their breasts and which had already made M. de Charlus’s stare seem to me so
enigmatic when I had seen him that morning outside the Casino. But with what I
now knew of his family I could no longer believe that it was that of a thief,
nor, after what I had heard of his conversation, of a madman. If he was so cold
towards me, while making himself so agreeable to my grandmother, this did not
perhaps arise from any personal antipathy, for in general, to the extent that
he was kindly disposed towards women, of whose faults he spoke without, as a
rule, departing from the utmost tolerance, he displayed towards men, and
especially young men, a hatred so violent as to suggest that of certain
misogynists for women. Of two or three “gigolos,” relatives or intimate friends
of Saint-Loup, who happened to mention their names, M. de Charlus remarked with
an almost ferocious expression in sharp contrast to his usual coldness: “Young
scum!” I gathered that the particular fault which he found in the young men of
the day was their effeminacy. “They’re nothing but women,” he said with scorn.
But what life would not have appeared effeminate beside that which he expected
a man to lead, and never found energetic or virile enough? (He himself, when he
walked across country, after long hours on the road would plunge his heated
body into frozen streams.) He would not even concede that a man should wear a
single ring.
But this obsession with virility did
not prevent his having also the most delicate sensibilities. When Mme de
Villeparisis asked him to describe to my grandmother some country house in
which Mme de Sévigné had stayed, adding that she could not help feeling that
there was something rather “literary” about that lady’s distress at being
parted from “that tiresome Mme de Grignan”:
“On the contrary,” he retorted, “I
can think of nothing more genuine. Besides, it was a time in which feelings of
that sort were thoroughly understood. The inhabitant of La Fontaine’s Monomotapa,
running round to see his friend who had appeared to him in a dream looking
rather sad, the pigeon finding that the greatest of evils is the absence of the
other pigeon, seem to you perhaps, my dear aunt, as exaggerated as Mme de
Sévigné’s impatience for the moment when she will be alone with her daughter.
It’s so beautiful, what she says when she leaves her: ‘This parting gives a
pain to my soul which I feel like an ache in my body. In absence one is liberal
with the hours. One anticipates a time for which one is longing.’”
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.
(…)
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.
(…)
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 down 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.”