by Dennis Abrams
Saturday change of schedule means an earlier lunch. “Come now, what are you thinking of, you’re forgetting it’s Saturday!” M. Vinteiul. “I don’t know who put that on the piano, it doesn’t belong there.” Walks after Mass. Games of Cat and Mouse between Francoise and Leonie. Leonie’s cruelty to Francoise. M. Legrandin’s snobbishness revealed. Marcel witnesses Francoise killing a chicken. Francoise’s lack of pity for those close to her. “The torrents of tears she shed while reading in the newspaper about the misfortunes of strangers would dry up quickly if she could picture to herself at all precisely the person concerned.” Marcel has lunch with Legrandin. Legrandin reveals his unhappiness at not knowing the Guermantes. Legrandin refuses to acknowledge he knows people in Balbec.
And a lovely paragraph describing our lack of knowledge and of our own motives and actions:
Davis: “And this certainly did not mean that M. Lergrandin was not sincere when he ranted against snobs. He could not be aware, at least from his own knowledge, that he was one, since we are familiar only with the passions of others, and what we come to know about our own, we have been able to learn only from them. Upon ourselves they act only secondarily, by way of our imagination, which substitutes for our primary motives alternative motives that are more seemly. It was never Legrandin’s snobbishness that advised him to pay frequent visits to a duchess. It would instruct Legrandin’s imagination to make that duchess appear to him as being endowed with all the graces. Legrandin would become acquainted with the duchess, filled with esteem for himself because he was yielding to attraction aware that he was one himself; for, because they were incapable of understanding the intermediary work of his imagination, they saw, coupled together, Legrandin’s social activity and its primary cause.”
And, Marcel discovers the beauty of hawthorns, a love that he will carry with him throughout the books.
And, finally, Marcel’s observation of Legrandin: “…he made a deep bow with a secondary recoil that brought his back sharply up past its starting position and that must have been taught him by the husband of his sister, Mme. de Cambremer. This rapid strengthening caused Legrandin’s bottom, which I had not supposed was so fleshy, to flow back in a sort of ardent muscular wave; and I did not know why that undulation of pure matter, that quite fleshly billow, with no expression of spirituality and whipped into a storm by a fully contemptible alacrity, suddenly awakened in my mind the possibility of a Legrandin quite different from the one he knew.” (Davis)
Who knew that the motion of flabby buttocks could be so revealing?
Today’s Reading:
Davis, page 135 “We always returned in good time from our walks…” through page 146 “…the harrowing neighborhood of the Champs-Elysees where she lived in Paris.” Moncrieff, page 186-201
The two passages quoted in this post in one way have to do with perception of one’s self, and of others’ perceptions of us. As I read Proust again, I am often reminded that Marcel, himself, is often deluded. And that, his often maxim-establishing and authoritative voice notwithstanding, we as readers better prepare ourselves to take some/much of what he says with a grain of salt.
So these early passages, in a way, establish this idea of folks not always being what they appear (to others and to themselves!).
Rick
Yes, I too think some of Proust’s pontifications on life and especially on psychology are quite suspect. So thanks for reminding me that I don’t have to take them seriously. What he seems to me to do brilliantly is dissect the behaviour of others superbly – in this section Leonie, Francoise, Legrandin . He seems to be able to see through the masks behind which other people attempt to disguise themselves, but has more trouble with ‘his’ generalisations. (I’m not sure who the ‘his’ is.)
There’s the question for you — are you listening to the young Marcel or the older Narrator? And, always keep in mind, that Proust is nothing if not gently ironic.
Really, sometimes Proust is a bit much in reaching for sensations. In a sentence of 86 words (Davis 123-24) he tells us that asparagus make your pee smell. In this sentence the asparagus metamorphose into creatures who perform a Shakespearean farce that he experiences through the smell of his chamber pot during the night.
He must have seen quite a few of these farces, because Francoise made the kitchen maid prepare asparagus all summer.
This is one of those moments in Proust that are kind of surprising, that come at rare intervals, when he shows you something a little shocking.
What I loved most in these pages was the long section on the early lunch. I can think of no other example of an author writing about the banalities of shared lives and in so doing showing their importance, their charm.
Personally, I loved the food descriptions, especially “the peas lined up and tallied like green mables in a game” and the “so unctuous and so tender” chicken. I’m a devotee of MFK Fisher and others, and I’m glad to add Proust to the list of good food writers.