Part 3

Sodom and Gomorrah: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 4
by Marcel Proust, John Sturrock (Translator)

(Page 3 of 5)

The "good evening" that he returned had nothing of that which M. de Charlus would have wished me. To this "good evening," M. de Vaugoubert lent, apart from the high ceremoniousness he thought to be that of society and of diplomacy, a jaunty, brisk, smiling tone, so as to seem, on the one hand, overjoyed by life - whereas inwardly he was brooding over the setbacks to a career lacking in promotion and in danger of ending in a forced retirement - and, on the other hand, young, virile, and charming, though he could see, and no longer dared even to go and inspect in his mirror, the wrinkles forming on the outlying parts of a face all of whose seductiveness he would have liked to have preserved. It was not that he would have wished for actual conquests, the mere thought of which frightened him on account of hearsay, of scandal, and of blackmail. Having gone from an almost infantile debauchery to absolute continence on the day his thoughts turned to the Quai d'Orsay and the desire to make a great career, he wore the look of a caged beast, casting glances in all directions expressive of fear, craving, and stupidity. His own was such that he did not pause to consider that the street boys of his adolescence were no longer children and that, when a newspaper-vendor yelled "La Presse!" into his face, he shuddered in terror more even than in desire, believing he had been recognized and tracked down.

But, failing the pleasures sacrificed to an ungrateful Quai d'Orsay, M. de Vaugoubert - and it was on this account that he would have liked still to be found attractive - had sudden impulses of the heart. God knows with how many letters he had pestered the ministry, what personal stratagems he had deployed, and how many times he had drawn on the credit of Mme de Vaugoubert (who, because of her corpulence, her high birth, her masculine look, and especially because of the mediocrity of her husband, was thought to be endowed with superior qualities and fulfilling the true functions of the minister) in order, for no valid reason, to get a young man entirely devoid of merit taken on to the staff of the legation. It is true that, a few months or a few years later, should this insignificant attaché have appeared to show, without the least hint of any evil intent, signs of coldness toward his chief, the latter, believing himself despised or betrayed, devoted the same hysterical ardor to punishing him as once to gratifying him. He moved heaven and earth to get him recalled, and the director of political affairs would receive a letter daily: "What is keeping you from getting rid of this fellow for me? Give him a bit of a talking to, for his own good. What he needs is to be given a really hard time of it." For which reason, the post of attaché to the court of King Theodosius was far from pleasant. But in every other respect, thanks to his perfect good sense as a man of the world, M. de Vaugoubert was one of the French government's best representatives abroad. When, later on, a supposedly superior man, a Jacobin, well informed in every sphere, replaced him, war was not long in breaking out between France and the country ruled over by the King.

Like M. de Charlus, M. de Vaugoubert did not like to be first with a greeting. Both preferred to "respond," forever fearful of the rumors that the person to whom they would otherwise have held out their hand might have heard about them since they last saw him. In my own case, M. de Vaugoubert did not have to ask himself the question, for in fact I had gone to greet him first, if only because of the difference in age. He answered me with a wondering and delighted look, his two eyes continuing to jump about as if there were forbidden clover to be grazed on either side. I thought it proper to solicit from him my introduction to Mme de Vaugoubert before that to the Prince, about which I was counting on speaking to him only afterward. The idea of bringing me into contact with his wife appeared to fill him with joy for himself, as for her, and he led me with resolute steps toward the Marquise. Arriving in front of her, and indicating me with both his hand and his eyes, with every possible mark of consideration, he remained nonetheless without speaking, and after a few seconds withdrew, with a fidgety look, so as to leave me alone with his wife. The latter had at once held out her hand to me, but without knowing to whom this mark of affability was being addressed, for I realized that M. de Vaugoubert had forgotten what my name was, had perhaps not recognized me even, and, not wanting, out of politeness, to admit it, had made the introduction consist of pure pantomime. So I was no further advanced; how to get myself presented to our host by a woman who did not know my name? Moreover, I found myself forced to talk for a few moments with Mme de Vaugoubert. This annoyed me from two points of view. I had no wish to remain forever at this party, for I had arranged with Albertine (I had given her a box for Phèdre) that she would come and see me a little before midnight. It is true that I was not in love with her; by getting her to come that evening, I was obeying a wholly sensual desire, even though we were in that torrid season of the year when a liberated sensuality is more ready to visit the organs of taste and seeks coolness above all. More than for the kiss of a girl, it thirsts for an orangeade or for a bath, or to gaze indeed on that peeled and juicy moon that was quenching the thirst of the sky. But I was counting on ridding myself at Albertine's side - who brought back for me, moreover, the coolness of the waves - of the regrets I could not fail to be left with by so many charming faces (for the soirée the Princesse was giving was for girls as well as ladies). There was nothing attractive, on the other hand, about the morose Bourbon face of the imposing Mme de Vaugoubert.

It was said at the ministry, without the least hint of malice, that in this ménage it was the husband who wore the skirts and the wife the breeches. Now, there was more truth in this than they thought. Mme de Vaugoubert was a man. Whether she had always been one, or had become what I now saw her to be, hardly matters, for in either case we are dealing with one of nature's most touching miracles, whereby, in the second case especially, the human kingdom is made to resemble the kingdom of flowers. On the first hypothesis - whether the future Mme de Vaugoubert had always been so heavily mannish - nature, by a stratagem both diabolical and beneficent, gives to the young girl the deceptive aspect of a man. And the adolescent male who does not like women and wishes to be cured lights with joy on this subterfuge, of discovering a fiancée who for him is the embodiment of a market porter. In the contrary case, if the woman does not to start with have masculine characteristics, she gradually acquires them in order to please her husband, unconsciously even, by that sort of mimeticism whereby certain flowers give themselves the appearance of the insects they seek to attract. The regret she feels at not being loved, at not being a man, virilizes her. Even aside from the case that concerns us, who has not observed how many of the most normal couples end up resembling one another, sometimes even by exchanging their good qualities? A former German chancellor, the Prince von Bülow, had married an Italian woman. In due course, on the Pincio, it was remarked how much Italian delicacy the German husband had acquired, and how much German coarseness the Italian Princess. To move out to a point eccentric to the laws we are tracing, everyone knows of an eminent French diplomat whose origin was recalled only by his name, one of the most illustrious in the East. As he matured, as he aged, the Oriental whom no one had ever suspected was revealed, and on seeing him you regretted the absence of the fez that would have been the crowning touch.

To come back to habits wholly unknown to the ambassador whose ancestrally padded silhouette we have just evoked, Mme de Vaugoubert embodied the type, acquired or predestined, the immortal image of which is the Princesse Palatine, forever in her riding habit, who, hav- ing taken more from her husband than his virility, and espousing the defects of the men who do not like women, denounces in her gossipy letters the mutual dealings of all the great noblemen at the court of Louis XIV. One of the factors that further accentuate the masculine appearance of women such as Mme de Vaugoubert is that the neglect they are left in by their husbands, and the shame that they feel, casts a gradual blight on everything womanly in them. In the end, they acquire the virtues and defects that the husband does not have. As he grows more frivolous, more effeminate, and more indiscreet, they become the charmless effigy, as it were, of the virtues that the husband ought to be practicing.

Traces of opprobrium, annoyance, and indignation had clouded Mme de Vaugoubert's regular features. I felt, alas, that she looked on me with interest and curiosity as one of the young men who appealed to M. de Vaugoubert, and whom she would have so much liked to be, now that her aging husband preferred youth. She looked at me with the attentiveness of those provincial women who copy out of a fashion catalogue the tailored dress that looks so well on the pretty young person in the drawing (the same one on every page, in point of fact, but illusorily multiplied into different individuals thanks to the difference in the poses and the variety of outfits). The vegetal attraction that drove Mme de Vaugoubert toward me was so strong that she went so far as to seize hold of my arm so that I might take her to drink a glass of orangeade. But I freed myself on the pretext that, on the point of leaving as I was, I had not yet had myself presented to our host.

The distance separating me from the entrance to the gardens, where he stood talking to one or two people, was not very great. But it made me more afraid than if, in order to cross it, I had had to expose myself to a running fire.

Many women by whom I fancied I might be able to get myself presented were in the garden, where, even as they feigned an impassioned admiration, they hardly knew what to do with themselves. Parties of this kind are generally anticipated. They scarcely become real until the next day, when they occupy the attention of the people who were not invited. If, on reading the article of a critic who has always evinced the greatest admiration for him, a true writer, devoid of the foolish amour-propre of so many literary people, finds the names of second-rate authors listed but not his own, he does not have time to dwell on what might for him be cause for astonishment: his books reclaim him. But a society woman has nothing to do, and, on discovering in Le Figaro, "Yesterday the Prince and Princesse de Guermantes gave a grand soirée, etc.," she exclaims, "What! I talked, three days ago, for an hour with Marie-Gilbert, without her so much as mentioning it!," and she racks her brains wondering what she might have done to the Guermantes. It has to be said that, where the Princesse's parties were concerned, the surprise was sometimes as great among those who were invited as among those who were not. For they exploded at the very moment when they were least expected, and sent a summons to people whom Mme de Guermantes had been neglecting for years. And almost all society people are so insignificant that each of their peers judges them only according to their degree of friendliness, cherishes them if invited, detests them if excluded. In the case of these last, if, indeed, the Princesse, even though they were among her friends, did not invite them, this often arose from her fear of displeasing "Palamède," who had excommunicated them. So I could be certain that she had not spoken about me to M. de Charlus; otherwise, I would not have found myself there. He was now leaning, facing the garden, next to the German ambassador, on the balustrade of the great staircase that led back into the house, so that, in spite of the three or four female admirers who had congregated around the Baron and were almost screening him, the guests were obliged to come and wish him good evening. He answered by styling people by their names. You heard successively, "Good evening, M. du Hazay; good evening, Mme de la Tour du Pin-Vercluse; good evening, Mme de la Tour du Pin-Gouvernet; good evening, Philibert; good evening, my dear Ambassadress," and so on. This made for a continuous yapping, interspersed with well-meaning advice or questions (to the answers to which he paid no heed), which M. de Charlus addressed in a tone at once gentler, artificial, in order to attest to his indifference, and benign: "Mind the little one doesn't catch cold, gardens are always a bit damp. Good evening, Mme de Brantes. Good evening, Mme de Mecklembourg. Is your young daughter here? Has she put on that ravishing pink dress? Good evening, Saint-Géran." Certainly, there was arrogance in this attitude. M. de Charlus knew he was a Guermantes occupying a preponderant place at this entertainment. But there was not only arrogance, and the very word "entertainment" evoked, for a man of aesthetic gifts, the sense of luxury and of curiosity that it may have if the entertainment in question is being given not by society people but in a painting by Carpaccio or Veronese. It is even more likely that the German Prince that was M. de Charlus was picturing to himself, rather, the entertainment that unfolds in Tannhäuser, with himself as the Margrave, having a kindly, condescending word for each of the guests at the entrance to the Warburg, as they disperse into the castle or the park, saluted by the long phrase, a hundred times repeated, of the famous March.

© 2005 Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Marcel Proust was born in Auteuil in 1871. His father, an eminent Professor of Medicine, was Roman Catholic and his mother was Jewish, factors that were to play an important role in his life and work. He was a brilliant, very literary schoolboy, and later a half-hearted student of law and political science. In his twenties he became an assiduous society figure, frequenting the most fashionable Paris salons of the day. During this period he published a volume of sketches and stories, Les Plaisirs et le jours, and between 1895 and 1900 wrote a novel, Jean Santeuil, which was in many ways a first draft for his masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu.

John Sturrock is a writer and critic who has previously translated Victor Hugo, Stendhal, and Rimbaud. A consulting editor at the London Review of Books, he lives in West Sussex, England.