III. Three Scenes of Homosexual Love
In this chapter, we look more closely at three important episodes that feature homosexuality, namely Montjouvain, the meeting of Charlus and Jupien in the mansion of the Guermantes, and the flogging scene in Jupien’s flophouse. We have decided to analyze these three scenes because the critics are in agreement about making comparisons among them. They form a group defined by homosexuality. By a detailed analysis, we will try to penetrate to the heart of each scene in order to discover the place it occupies in the theory of homosexuality outlined by Marcel.
Before analyzing the three great homosexual scenes, we propose first a general consideration of voyeurism, a phenomenon present in all three scenes, and of sadomasochism.1 Concerning the latter, Halberstadt-Freud stresses its paradoxical nature: masochistic pain is rooted in fundamental kindness. This is explained by the fact that cruelty serves to exceed moral limits set by education. The critic draws attention also to the extent of the phenomenon: sadomasochism is always present, in many forms:
In Proust, we find a range of variations on the sadomasochist theme, from the sexual to the moral. Sadomasochism seems to transform torture and suffering into indispensable ingredients of existence.2
For voyeurism, we turn to Belloï, who notes that, in the three scenes in question, voyeurism develops each time in the same manner: the Protagonist is the unseen witness of a homosexual scene. Belloï defines this position as follows: “a timely off-stage placement of the Narrator,3 and his adoption of a particular stance: that of seeing-without-being-seen.”4 This definition, which is reinforced by Schehr (“all [the scenes] depend on the narrator not being seen”5), is inspired by the theory of social observation set up by Moscovici. The latter says, in regard to this phenomenon:
The drawback [of this method] is that people involved in this kind of research most often know that they are being watched. They do not speak or behave as they ordinarily would among themselves. To avoid this distortion, psychosociologists have sometimes put invisible instruments to work to allow them to observe people’s actions without their knowledge.6
Belloï remarks that the Search offers an original solution: Marcel is in an invisible position. However, this position is no more original than necessary. This is because the Protagonist has the function of “stripping off the masks, of showing what is behind the scenes.”7 Outside of his position “in the wings,” Marcel sees only the masks.8
Belloï points out that the voyeuristic scenes of the Search all follow the basic model of voyeurism that appears during the time of Swann’s dinners at Combray.
Before moving on to analyze the three scenes, we observe with Erman that it is no accident that voyeurism reappears often in the Search. This arises from the fact that one must respect “the distance inherent in vision,”9 otherwise one sees nothing. Marcel emphasizes distance, an inherent attribute of vision, through the botanical metaphor: “those flowers that in a garden are fertilised by the pollen of a neighbouring flower which they may never touch.”10 Throughout the Search, the Protagonist concentrates on the visual. Consequently, it is only normal that he should reflect on the phenomenon of vision.
Lavagetto frames the Montjouvain scene between a prologue and an epilogue.11 The prologue is formed by the episode recounting the visit to Vinteuil by Marcel’s parents:
On the day when my parents had gone to pay him a visit, I had accompanied them, but they had allowed me to remain outside, and as M. Vinteuil’s house, Montjouvain, stood on a site actually hollowed out from a steep hill covered with shrubs, among which I took cover, I had found myself on a level with his drawing room, upstairs, and only a few feet away from its window. When a servant came in to tell him that my parents had arrived, I had seen M. Vinteuil run to the piano and lay out a sheet of music so as to catch the eye. But as soon as they entered the room he had snatched it away and hidden it in a corner….he had hurriedly protested: “I cannot think who put that on the piano; it is not the proper place for it at all”12
Belloï notes that this episode has many elements in common with the Montjouvain scene: Marcel is in the same location, he sees the same scene. Here is the “preparation” of the Montjouvain scene, which clearly shows the similarities between them:
Having gone as far as the Montjouvain pond, where I enjoyed seeing again the reflection of the tiled roof of the hut, I had lain down in the shade and gone to sleep among the bushes on the steep slope that rose up behind the house, just where I had waited for my parents, years before, one day when they had gone to call on M. Vinteuil….I saw Mlle Vinteuil…only a few feet away from me, in that room in which her father had entertained mine, and which she had now made into a little sitting-room for herself. The window was partly open; the lamp was lighted; I could watch her every movement without her being able to see me; but, had I gone away, I must have made a rustling sound among the bushes, she would have heard me, and might have thought that I had been hiding there in order to spy on her….At the far end of Mlle Vinteuil’s sitting room, on the mantelpiece, stood a small photograph of her father which she went briskly to fetch, just as the sound of carriage wheels was heard from the road outside, then flung herself down on a sofa and drew close beside her a little table on which she placed the photograph, just as, long ago, M. Vinteuil had “placed” beside him the piece of music which he would have liked to play over to my parents.13
As we shall see from the following, the Montjouvain scene is different from the two other scenes that will be studied in this chapter. This is because voyeurism is modified by exhibitionism. Consider first the following extract:
“Oh, yes, it is so extremely likely that people are looking at us at this time of night in this densely populated district!” said her friend, with a bitter irony. “And what if they are?….All the better that they should see us.”14
Contrary to the two scenes in which Marcel is in a voyeur’s position in relation to a homosexual scene, the Protagonist cannot be described simply as a voyeur in the Montjouvain scene. In this connection, Lavagetto points out that Freud indicated “reciprocity between the pleasure of watching and the pleasure of displaying oneself.”15 Ladenson notes that exhibitionism appears on several levels in the scene in question. The centre of exhibitionism lies in the fact that it is the two young lesbians who are in charge, not Marcel. We will return to this point later in this section.
According to Schehr, the Montjouvain scene could be linked to a reading metaphor. It is Mlle Vinteuil who says:
“But it’s too dreadful! People will see us,” Mlle Vinteuil answered…. “When I say ‘see us’ I mean, of course, see us reading. It’s so dreadful to think that in every trivial little thing you do some one may be overlooking you.”16
Schehr observes that the idea of reading must be widened to that of interpretation, an important phenomenon in the homosexual theme of the Search since “interpretation inverts the picture.”17
In addition to reading and interpretation, the Montjouvain scene can be linked to the theatre. The Protagonist himself proposes such a reading:
It is behind the footlights of a Paris theatre, and not under the homely lamp of an actual country house, that one expects to see a girl leading her friend on to spit upon the portrait of a father who has lived and died for nothing and no one but herself."18
Hidden in the wings, Marcel performs the function of spectator. Mlle Vinteuil and her friend appear as actresses. According to Lavagetto, the two young lesbians play their roles consciously. It is they who are “in control”: Marcel “stops seeing when the shutters are closed, and the curtain falls.”19 He will not therefore see the two young women “do a cattleya.”20
Like many plays, the Montjouvain scene is followed by an epilogue. Lavagetto indicates that in relation to the homosexual “spectacle,”21 Marcel didn’t see much during the scene at Montjouvain (cf. 3.1.2 The meeting of Charlus and Jupien). This is why Marcel endeavors to “pierce the Gomorrean secret.” He writes:
I told Andrée that it would be of great interest to me if she would allow me to see her, even if she simply confined herself to caresses which would not embarrass her unduly in my presence, performing such actions with those of Albertine’s friends who shared her tastes, and I mentioned Rosemonde, Berthe, each of Albertine’s friends, in the hope of finding out something… ‘not for anything in the world would I do the things you mention in your presence,’ Andrée replied.”22
In spite of all his efforts, Marcel sees
nothing. The curtain falls once again on
In the Search, the term “sadism” has a slightly different connotation from the definition found in dictionaries: Ladenson remarks that the adjective is inseparably linked to parental profanation.
Marcel describes Mlle Vinteuil as “sadistic.” Bonnet notes that the Protagonist is right to attach this adjective to her since she provokes (it is Mlle Vinteuil who places the photo of her father where her friend must see it) and awaits her friend’s sadistic act. However, the Protagonist adds at the same time that she is not a true sadist:
A sadist of her kind is an artist in evil, which a wholly wicked person could not be, for in that case the evil would not have been external, it would seem quite natural to her, and would not even have been distinguishable from herself; and as for virtue, respect for the dead, filial obedience, since she would never have practised the cult of these things, she would take no impious delight in their profanation. “Sadists” of Mlle. Vinteuil’s sort are creatures so purely sentimental, so virtuous by nature, that even sensual pleasure appears to them as something bad, a privilege reserved for the wicked.24
Schehr remarks about this that Marcel is right not to consider Mlle Vinteuil a true sadist. The critic says:
If Mlle Vinteuil really were a sadist, she would not perform an act ‘of such rudimentary and naïve symbolism.’ If she really were what she says she is, or more exactly, what she seemingly shows herself to be (for she says she is reading), she would not read her own actions. Were she really a sadist, her behavior ‘would be more veiled both to others’ eyes and her own.25
Halberstadt-Freud explains this through two components. First of all, he distinguishes two types of sadism: sexual perversion and true cruelty (which has nothing to do with sexual perversion). Mlle Vinteuil belongs to the first type. This is because she throws herself into sadism as a reaction against the moral side of her education:
The excitement and the overcoming of the limitations of the crushing yoke of propriety go together for Mlle Vinteuil. The prudish girl gets secret pleasure from sadistic debauches. The theme is the same in Sade:26 only turning morality upside-down leads to liberation and the gratification of desire.27
Secondly, Halberstadt-Freud stresses the will: Mlle Vinteuil wants to be bad. It is this will that distinguishes the true sadist from the bully.28 Compagnon, for his part, attributes the fact that she is not a true sadist to the character’s erroneous opinion: “She believes in evil, but she is mistaken, because evil is not where she thinks, not in the liturgy of blasphemy or the ritual of profanation, but in everyday life.”29 In order to prove his theory, the critic quotes the following passage:
Perhaps she would not have thought of wickedness as a state so rare, so abnormal, so exotic, one which it was so refreshing to visit, had she been able to distinguish in herself, as in all her fellow-men and women, that indifference to the sufferings which they cause, which, whatever names else be given it, is the one true, terrible and lasting form of cruelty.30
At heart, therefore, Mlle Vinteuil is not at all sadistic. According to Ladenson, this is because the apparent sadism of the young woman is rooted in a fundamental goodness. Halberstadt-Freud shares this opinion. This is why, says Massis, Marcel keeps on finding excuses for Mlle Vinteuil, for “what he wants us to know above all is that ‘in Mlle Vinteuil’s heart, evil was, in the beginning at least, not unmixed.’”31 Reille formulates it as follows: “The argument of the lawyer Marcel is the following: to take pleasure in desecrating virtue and filial feeling, their cult must exist within the person, who is therefore not entirely wicked.”32 Consider for example the following extract, which shows that the Protagonist does his best to enable the reader to see beyond the appearance of sadism:
She reached out as far as she could across the limitations of her true character to find the language appropriate to a vicious young woman such as she longed to be thought, but the words which, she imagined, such a young woman might have uttered with sincerity sounded unreal in her mouth. And what little she allowed herself to say was said in a strained tone, in which her ingrained timidity paralysed her tendency to freedom and audacity of speech…”Oh, please!” – a gentle reproach which testified to the genuine goodness of her nature…but rather because it was the bridle which, so as to avoid all appearance of egotism, she herself used to curb the gratification which her friend was attempting to procure for her.33
Mlle
Vinteuil’s friend spits on the photograph of Vinteuil. This act frames “a cruel
rite”:35 the profanation of the father. This clearly recalls “a
subject that deserves a chapter to itself: the Profanation of the Mother.”36
However, that chapter was never written. The critics offer many reasons. For
Lavagetto, the chapter on desecrated mothers was written in its masculine form
(desecrated fathers). If one returns then to the transposition proposed by
Bataille (“Vinteuil’s daughter personifies Marcel and Vinteuil is Marcel’s
mother”37), one arrives just the same at the profanation of the
mother. Erman subscribes to the same line of thought in
defining Vinteuil as a substitute for the mother. The critic’s opinion is based
on the following words: “M. Vinteuil’s life, his complete absorption, first in
having to play both mother and nursery-maid to his daughter….”38
According to Roger, a special chapter for the desecrated mothers is unnecessary
“since the whole tale is haunted by this crime”:39 in the Search,
each mother is predestined for blasphemy according to the critic – a thesis
supported by Ladenson, who returns to the example of Charlus “[who] is said to
profane his mother’s memory merely by resembling her.”40 Kristeva
follows suit, by calling the Montjouvain scene the “albumen”41 of
the episode of Marcel’s grandmother’s death.
We have seen that the Montjouvain scene is preceded by a prologue. According to Ladenson, the prologue – which shows that the Montjouvain scene functions basically as a kind of mirror-image of Marcel’s parents’ visit to Vinteuil – evokes Vinteuil as a witness to his own profanation. Mlle Vinteuil therefore desecrates the portrait of her father in order to show something. Halberstadt-Freud shares this opinion and says that the daughter wants to distinguish herself from her father in this way. By defiling the portrait, she rebels against the moral severity that Vinteuil taught (cf. 3.1.1.1.2 Sadism). Halberstadt concludes:
More than the photo of her father, Mlle Vinteuil tries to profane her own prudishness. However, this does not succeed: her mentality remains between her and pleasure. Her virtue denies her the vice she seeks.42
Reille proposes a different interpretation of the fact that Mlle Vinteuil seems to want to “make her father participate in her ‘fooling around’ with her friend.” According to the critic, “this ghostly presence of the father is necessary to Mlle Vinteuil’s eroticism, which has therefore an incestuous character.”43
Miller observes that the death of Vinteuil is brought about by the life-style of his daughter. According to the critic, Marcel emphasizes in this way the destructive forces inherent in homosexuality.
Marcel adopts a positive stance regarding homosexuality in the Montjouvain scene. This is noticeable first of all in the refusal to call Mlle Vinteuil a sadist – and in the many explanations that colour the behavior of the young lesbian. Halberstadt-Freud notes:
It shows us that the visible action arises from a conflict. It is basically the opposite of what Mlle Vinteuil wishes to attain. Mlle Vinteuil’s exaggerated sweetness and indulgence, her masochistic spirit of sacrifice are shown here like something that is separate – if only momentarily – from its opposite: the opposite as perversion.44
The rather moving manner in which the Protagonist describes seeing through the window also points toward Marcel’s positive position:
In the V-shaped opening of her crape bodice Mlle. Vinteuil felt the sting of her friend’s sudden kiss; she gave a little scream and ran away; and then they began to chase one another about the room, scrambling over the furniture, their wide sleeves fluttering like wings, clucking and crowing like a pair of amorous fowls. At last Mlle. Vinteuil fell down exhausted upon the sofa, where she was screened from me by the stooping body of her friend…she sprang onto the knees of her friend and held out a chaste brow to be kissed; precisely as a daughter would have done to her mother…Her friend took the girl’s head in her hands and placed a kiss on her brow with a docility prompted by the real affection she had for Mlle. Vinteuil, as well as by the desire to bring what distraction she could into the dull and melancholy life of an orphan.45
To show that Marcel adopts a positive attitude toward what he see at Montjouvain, Miller uses the fact that the lesbian couple deciphers the illegible papers left by the musician after his death so that humanity might enjoy the masterpiece. This act is appreciated by Marcel and contributes, according to the critic, to the positive judgment of the Montjouvain scene.
Nevertheless, Marcel introduces a negative note, according to Miller: he stresses the destructive forces of homosexuality in recalling that the habits of Mlle Vinteuil caused her father’s death. Erman points out that this coincides with Marcel’s general way of thinking: inversion is inseparably linked with suffering.
At first sight, the scene in the mansion of the Guermantes could be called voyeuristic: observing Charlus and Jupien, Marcel keeps still or leaps suddenly to one side to avoid being seen by anyone. For example, look at the following quotation:
I was peering through the shutters of the staircase window at the Duchess’s little tree and at the precious plant, exposed in the courtyard…My curiosity emboldening me by degrees, I went down to the ground-floor window, which also stood open with its shutters ajar. I could hear distinctly, as he got ready to go out, Jupien who could not detect me behind my blind, where I stood perfectly still until the moment when I drew quickly aside in order not to be seen by M. de Charlus…A moment later, I again recoiled, in order not to be seen by Jupien…Then, realising that no one could see me, I decided not to let myself be disturbed again.47
After these “recoils” – which fit in with “social observation”48 according to Belloï – Marcel seems ready to observe the behaviour of the two inverts. We follow Belloï in stressing the fact that Marcel tries very hard to be able to observe the encounter without being seen.49 So the Protagonist wants to follow the “ballet”50 of Jupien and Charlus. However, he will not see a great deal: the Baron and Jupien go into the interior of the shop, so that Marcel neither sees nor hears anything further. Lavagetto notes the analogy with Gomorrah which the Protagonist does not succeed in spying on either (cf. 2.2.2 Gomorrah).
The passage from the exterior to the interior of the shop coincides with the passage from vision to hearing.51 Once he arrives in the room next to the shop, the Protagonist does not worry about being seen, but he does not want to be heard:
But when I was inside the shop, taking care not to let any plank in the floor make the slightest creak, as I found that the least sound in Jupien’s shop could be heard from the other, I thought to myself how rash Jupien and M. de Charlus had been, and how wonderfully fortune had favoured them. I did not dare move…I was afraid of making a noise.”52
Besides this, the Protagonist does not see the two inverts again at first – he only hears them:
For from what I heard at first in Jupien’s shop, which was only a series of inarticulate sounds, I imagine that few words had been exchanged. It is true that these sounds were so violent that, if one set had not always been taken up an octave higher by a parallel plaint, I might have thought that one person was strangling another within a few feet of me, and that subsequently the murderer and his resuscitated victim were taking a bath to wash away the traces of the crime…Finally, after about half an hour…a conversation began.53
From what follows, hearing is once more exchanged for sight: Marcel “climbed on tip-toe up [his] ladder so as to peep through the ventilator which [he] did not open.”54
Ladenson notes, in connection with the transition from vision to hearing, that the author has consciously chosen to place the Protagonist in such a position that it would not be possible for him to describe the scene visually: Proust was undoubtedly afraid of shocking his readers. In a letter to Gallimard (1 November 1912), the author writes: “There is no coarse display. And in the end you may think that the metaphysical and moral point of view predominate throughout the work.”55 Leriche notes that in effect one sees nothing: the transom that would permit the hero lying in ambush to know what Charlus and Jupien are doing is placed too high.”56 It is true that in Jupien’s flophouse, Marcel describes the flogging scene visually, but Ladenson draws attention to the fact that this scene is located in the last volume of the Search. The public is therefore confronted with this visual description, which leaves nothing to the imagination, only after having digested the other homosexual scenes (cf. 2.1 The reception of the work). Ladenson adds yet another element that permits a visual description of the last great homosexual scene: its orientation is sadistic and not genital.
When Charlus and Jupien enter the shop, the
Protagonist performs an act that does not correspond at all to his attempts to
remain invisible on the ladder: he crosses the courtyard of the Guermantes
mansion where everyone can see him, even if he sidles along the walls. Here is
the extract: “keeping close to the walls, I made a circuit in the open air of
the courtyard, trying not to let myself be seen. If I was not, I owe it more, I
am sure, to chance than to my own sagacity.”57 So the Protagonist
seems conscious of the “dangerous” and “strange” nature of this act. This is
undoubtedly why he suggests three arguments that made him decide to take this
route and not the other, which “was the most prudent method” since “thus [by
descending and climbing several flights of stairs] the whole of [his] journey
would be made under cover, [he] should not be seen by anyone.”58
First, he is too impatient to take the “safe” route, which was longer than
crossing the yard. Secondly, remembering Montjouvain, “affairs of this sort of
which I have been a spectator have always been presented in a setting of the
most imprudent and least probable character, as if such revelations were to be
the reward of an action full of risk, though in part clandestine.”59
The third reason is described by Lavagetto as “unbelievable in the circumstances,”60
and consists of a story about the Boers:61
Thinking of the Boers who, with British armies facing them, were not afraid to expose themselves at the moment when they had to cross, in order to reach a covered position, a tract of open country: “It would be a fine thing” I thought to myself, “if I were to shew less courage when the theatre of operations is simply the human heart, and when the only steel that I, who engaged in more than one duel without fear at the time of the Dreyfus case, have to fear is that of the eyes of the neighbours who have other things to do beside looking into the courtyard.”62
Because of these three elements, Marcel is therefore prepared to give up his invisible state and he risks in this way missing the homosexual scene.
As we have already shown in the second chapter of this work (2.2.1.1.2 The theory of inversion), the Protagonist adopts an ambiguous, double position double in respect of inversion when he observes Charlus and Jupien. On one hand, he calls the scene “beautiful” (“As soon as I had considered their meeting from this point of view, everything about it seemed to me instinct with beauty.”63) and expresses in this way a positive liking for what he sees. On the other hand, Marcel employs more negative terms to describe the meeting of the two inverts, pointing to a negative attitude before the observed scene:
It is true that these sounds were so violent that, if one set had not always been taken up an octave higher by a parallel plaint, I might have thought that one person was strangling another within a few feet of me, and that subsequently the murderer and his resuscitated victim were taking a bath to wash away the traces of the crime.64
Marcel thus seems to change his opinion: if he was yet more absolutely positive at the time of the Montjouvain scene, here, the negative terms could suggest an evolution. We propose to examine whether this negative evolution continues.
While Charlus is being flogged by Maurice in the flophouse, the Protagonist is clearly in the voyeur’s position. Lavagetto notes: “Neither Jupien nor Charlus can know what we know: Hidden in the shadows, behind the peephole,65 as elsewhere behind a screen and the transom, there is a secret agent .…”66
Just as in the scene of voyeurism in the Guermantes mansion, the Protagonist is enormously preoccupied with not being seen. This time, he does not really worry about being heard, unlike Charlus: “‘Nobody can hear us?’ the Baron inquired of Jupien, who reassured him.”67
Belloï compares the flogging scene with the
encounter of Charlus and Jupien from the viewpoint of the staircase motif.68
Under the point 3.1.2 The meeting of Charlus and Jupien, we saw that a
staircase fulfills a double function: on one hand, it lies along the route
toward the object being watched (this is why Marcel descends it and, later in
the scene, avoids it by crossing the courtyard of the mansion to get to
Jupien’s shop); on the other hand, a ladder allows an excellent view (which is
why Marcel climbs it). A staircase appears also in the “Temple of Dishonour.”69
They soon shewed me up to Room 43, but the atmosphere was so unpleasant and my curiosity was so great that, having drunk my black-current wine, I started downstairs again; then, taken with another idea, I turned around and went up past my own floor to the very top.70
Belloï also relates the flogging scene to the scene at Montjouvain, on the basis of many factors. First, the two scenes are prepared: Mlle Vinteuil carefully plants the photo of her father near the armchair, while Jupien “sets up” the torturer and M. de Charlus. In addition, the flogging scene is, like that of Montjouvain, entirely staged. Belloï notes: “Maurice ‘plays’ the torturer, Charlus ‘plays’ the victim.”72
The scene in Jupien’s flophouse can easily be termed sadistic. Sadism not only exists in the action but is also expressed in the language, which is sprinkled with coarse words. For example, consider the following extract:
“I beg you, mercy! Mercy! Have pity! Release me! Don’t hit me so hard!” a voice was saying, “I kiss your feet, I humble myself before you, I won’t do it again. Have pity on me!” “No, you worthless trash,” another voice replied, “And, since you bawl and crawl on your knees, we’re going to chain you to the bed. No pity!” And I heard the cracking of a whip, probably made still more cutting with nails, for I heard cries of pain.73
Nevertheless, it is neither Maurice nor the other “torturers” who are true sadists. Lavagetto notes that, for Charlus, Maurice is not brutal enough:
…he said, “I did not want to speak in front of that young man. He’s a well meaning lad and does the best he can. But I don’t find him brutal enough. I like his looks, but he calls me ‘worthless trash’ as if it was a lesson he had learned by heart.”74
All things considered, the “perversion” of the torturer comes from the same stable as that of his companions:
Then one of them, with the air of confessing something diabolical, hazarded the following: “I say, Baron, you may not believe it but, when I was a kid, I used to look through the keyhole and watch my father and mother embracing one another. That was naughty, wasn’t it?”75
Miller points out in this connection that it is a matter of “innocent boys, ashamed to earn their livings in this fashion”76 who do not impress Charlus at all with confessions of their “obscenities.”77 This gives the impression that it is Charlus who is the true sadist – an impression confirmed by the following speech of Saint-Loup:
“One day, a man who…displayed odd tastes, asked my uncle to let him come to this place. But no sooner had he arrived than it was not to the ladies but to my uncle Palamède that he began to make overtures. My uncle pretended not to understand, made an excuse to send for his two friends; they appeared on the scene, seized the offender, stripped him, thrashed him till he bled, and then with twenty degrees of frost outside kicked him into the street where he was found more dead than alive; so much so that the police started an inquiry which the poor devil had the greatest difficulty in getting them to abandon. My uncle would never go in for such drastic methods now.”78
Lavagetto notes therefore with some justice that the sadistic nature of Charlus had already been revealed well before the flogging scene.79
Kristeva situates the baron’s sadism in the fact that “in his own lacerated body, he kills Morel, whom he has incorporated and can no longer possess or desire.”80 The critic points out that Charlus sustains in this way an inversion of roles: he passes from the role of victim to that of torturer. The Baron marks this inversion by the adoption of the language of the gigolos: “M. de Charlus…stopped a long time with each of them, talking what he thought was their language, partly through pretentious affectation of local color, partly from a sadistic pleasure in contact with low life.”81
The flogging scene shows that the sadism of Charlus is related to masochism: he seeks pleasure in suffering. This is no doubt why the Protagonist said in Sodom and Gomorrah I, when he heard Charlus and Jupien: “I concluded from this later on that there is another thing as vociferous as pain, namely pleasure.”82 Kristeva remarks that sadomasochistic practices permit the Baron to escape “the compartmentalization of botanical sexuality that constitutes for the narrator the secret of human sexuality.”83 From the angle of sadomasochism, he transcends it, he attains an absolute good: “A sadist may think he is talking to a murderer, but his ingenuous soul is not changed thereby.”84
Erman points out that the sadomasochism of the Baron may have been provoked by Morel’s abandonment. It would then be pride that leads Charlus toward sadomasochistic activities since inverted love “rests…on erotomania, a kind of proud and blind madness implying a bipolar relationship in which the certitude of being loved is never called into question.”85 Sadomasochism is thus a consequence of the pessimism of the theory of inversion.
Erman links the sadomasochism of Charlus to Morel – Halberstadt-Freud and Kristeva do the same. Kristeva stresses the sadistic character of the violinist. Look for example at the following quote:
“Listen,” said Morel, anxious to excite in a fashion he considered less compromising for himself (albeit it was actually more immoral) the Baron’s senses: “what I should like would be to find a girl who was quite pure, make her fall in love with me, and take her virginity.” M. de Charlus could not refrain from pinching Morel’s ear affectionately, but added innocently: “…you would be obliged to marry her.” “Marry her? Balls! I should promise, but once the little operation was performed, I should clear out and leave her.”…“You would really do that?” he said to Morel with a laugh, squeezing him more tightly still. “And why not?” said Morel, seeing that he was not shocking the Baron by continuing to expound to him what was indeed one of his desires…The idea of Morel’s “dropping” without compunction a girl whom he had outraged had given him a sudden and entire pleasure. From that moment his sensual appetites were satisfied for a time and the sadist (a true medium, he, if you like) who had for a few moments taken the place of M. de Charlus had fled, leaving a clear field for the real M. de Charlus, full of artistic refinement, sensibility, goodness.86
Morel is thus a real sadist. It remains to be seen whether this is “the unsatisfied and impossible desire for young Adonises like Morel [that had] pushed Charlus beyond desire.”87 This can be deduced from the fact that Morel is present during the flogging scene, even though it is only in a vague, abstract, simulated manner (Charlus wants torturers who resemble the violinist):
I saw ‘the man from the slaughterhouse’ come in. He did, as a matter of fact, look somewhat like ‘Maurice’ but, what was still more peculiar, both of them had in their faces something of a type which I had never definitely formulated in my mind, but which I realised at that moment was to be discerned in Morel’s face – or, if not in his face as I had always seen it…. As soon as I had formed in my mind, from details drawn from my recollection of Morel…I realised that these two young men…were, in a way, successors to Morel. Should I infer from this that M. de Charlus, at least in one species of love affair, was always faithful to one uniform type of manly beauty and that the desire which had led him to select these young men, one after the other, was the same as that which had prompted him to accost Morel on the station platform at Doncières, and that all three of them resembled somewhat the Grecian youth whose figure, carved like a cameo in the sapphire of M. de Charlus’s eyes, gave to his glance that strange something which had frightened me the first day at Balbec? Or was it that, his love for Morel having modified the type he sought, when he wished to console himself for Morel’s absence he selected men who resembled him?88
Many critics analyze the flogging scene. Almost as many pass over in silence the end of that scene, when “Jupien’s guests”89 fled along the corridors of the Metro “which were as black as catacombs.”90 At his conference at Nimègue (14/03/01), Schehr broke the silence surrounding the passage that closes the flogging scene. Defining the halls of the Metro as “Sodom above/below scene/Seine,”91 the critic indicates that it is not an accident that “M. de Charlus might well have placed the prophetic inscription ‘Sodoma’”92 on Jupien’s flophouse. This is because Charlus had already reminded Marcel of Pompeii (“‘If I believe that tomorrow we may meet the fate of the cities around Vesuvius, the latter felt that they were menaced with the same destiny as the accursed cities of the Bible. They have found on the walls of one of the houses of Pompeii this significant inscription: Sodoma, Gomora.’”93), which was destroyed in manner similar to Sodom (and now Paris).
In the catacombs, Marcel has not much use for his voyeuristic abilities: surrounded by darkness, nothing remains to him except the sense of touch. For this reason, it is impossible for him to describe what he sees. Consequently, he cannot describe anything but what he feels. Schehr points out that the sexual identity of Marcel is thrown into question in this way. We will return to this matter in the last chapter of this work.
In this last great homosexual scene of the Search, the Protagonist lays out a very dark description of the events he has witnessed. We have already explained that this scene is in keeping with the pessimistic theory of inversion constructed by Marcel. The Protagonist uses negative terms in the description of what he sees and he does not seem much at ease before all these “cruelties.” Many critics go so far as to speak of revulsion in defining the way the Protagonist sees this scene. The evolution announced at the time of the meeting of Charlus and Jupien is thus continued: Marcel gives negative descriptions of what he has witnessed.
After the analysis of the three great
homosexual scenes of the Search, we arrive at several conclusions. First
of all, we summarize the elements that we have discovered, with the aid of a
diagram after Belloï:95
|
|
Montjouvain |
Courtyard of the Guermantes mansion |
Jupien’s
flophouse |
|
Gender |
Feminine |
Masculine |
Masculine |
|
Type of meeting |
Preparatory preview |
No preview |
Preparatory preview |
|
Themes |
Homosexuality Voyeurism Sadism |
Homosexuality Voyeurism |
Homosexuality Voyeurism Sadism Sadomasochism |
|
Point of view |
Window |
Transom |
Peep-hole |
Looking at this diagram, one sees at once that the three scenes have many elements in common. This is undoubtedly why many critics consider them as a group.
Concerning the point of view of the Protagonist, the diagram shows that there is a “progressive narrowing of the perspective… Close-up: zooming in and shortening focus.”96 The more Marcel’s point of view narrows, the more the Protagonist seems to evolve toward a negative evaluation of what he observes: while the homosexuality and sadism of Mlle Vinteuil are described positively, these phenomena receive dark, negative descriptions during the flogging scene. If Marcel evolves from positive to negative, there will doubtless be a turning point. In effect, between Montjouvain and Jupien’s flophouse we find the meeting between Charlus and Jupien, which is approached ambiguously by the Protagonist, as if he was beginning to doubt his predominantly positive position at Montjouvain. This evolution undoubtedly belongs to the Bildungsroman side of the Search. We note that this evolution is the opposite of that toward homosexuality as a phenomenon: “The oysterphobe has become an oysterphile.”97 As always in the Search, the double ambiguity plays an important role.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Halberstadt-Freud uses “sadomasochism” as a general term.. He does not, therefore, make a distinction between sadism and sadomasochism.
[2] HALBERSTADT-FREUD H.C., Op. Cit.,p54. We have translated [into French, and then into English].
[3] We point out that this idea is refuted by many critics, who express
the opinion that Marcel is at the scene and participates. (Cf. 4.1.1 Marcel)
[4] BELLOÏ
L, La scène proustienne, Nathan, Paris, 1993, p82
[5]
SCHEHR L.R., Op. Cit.,
p46
[6] These words of Mocovici are quoted in BELLOÏ, Op. Cit., p82
[7]
BELLOÏ, Op. Cit., p81
[8] Cf. Kant
(le noumène [Ding an sich] et le phénomène [Ding für sich])
[9] ERMAN M,
L’œil de Proust, Op. Cit., p112. Cf.
Nietzsche
[10] SGI,
vol. 3, p29. [RTP II, p23]
[11] Belloï proposes the same idea, but he uses the terms “preparatory”
and “commenting”
(BELLOÏ, Op. Cit., p82).
[12] CS,
vol. 1, pp 111-112. [RTP I, p86]
[13] CS,
vol. 1, pp 157-158. [RTP
I, p122]
[14]
CS, vol. 1, p159. [RTP I, p124]
[15]
LAVAGETTO M, Chambre 43. Un lapsus de Marcel Proust, Editions Belin, 1996, p112
[16] CS,
vol. 1, p159. [RTP I,
p124]
[17] SCHEHR
L.R., Op. Cit., p44
[18] CS,
vol. 1, p161. [RTP I,
p125]
[19]
LAVAGETTO M, Op. Cit., p75
[20] CS,
vol. 1, p366. [RTP I,
p284]
[21]
LAVAGETTO M, Op. Cit., p75.
[22]
AD, vol. 4, pp 128-129. [RTP II, 767]
[23]
HALBERSTADT-FREUD H.C., Op. Cit., p62. We have
translated [into French, and then into English]
[24] CS,
vol. 1, p162. [RTP I, p126]
[25] SCHEHR L.R., Op. Cit., p48.
[26] Compagnon does not share this opinion and says that “Mlle Vinteuil associates sensuality and evil in a way that recalls Sade less than Baudelaire.” (COMPAGNON A, Proust entre deux siècles, Op. Cit., p173.) [27] HALBERSTADT-FREUD H.C., Op. Cit., p59. We have translated [into French, and then into English].
[28]. The critic adds that this goes equally for Mlle Vinteuil’s friend.
He calls attention to the work of deciphering that she embarks on in order to
be able to edit the works of Vinteuil.
[29] COMPAGNON A, Proust entre deux siècles,
Op. Cit.,p174.
[30]
CS, vol. 1, p163.[RTP I, p127]
[31] MASSIS H, D’André Gide à Marcel Proust,
Lyon, Lardanchet, 1948, p349.
[32] REILLE
J.F., Op. Cit., p134.
[33]
CS, vol. 1, p159. [RTP I, p124]
[34]
Leriche points out in this connection: “on the Sodom
side, there are no profanations of this sort.” (LERICHE F, Op. Cit., pXLI)
LAVAGETTO M, Op. Cit., p74
[35] SGII,
vol. 3, p300. [RTP II, p220]
[36]
BATAILLE G, Op. Cit., p75
[37] CS,
vol. 1, p157 [RTP I, p122]
[38] ROGER
A, Op. Cit., p44
[39]
LADENSON E, Op. Cit., p64
[40]
KRISTEVA J, Op. Cit., p229
[41] HALBERSTADT-FREUD H.C., Op. Cit., p62. We have translated [into French, and then into English].
[42] REILLE
J.F., Proust: le temps du désir, Paris, Les éditeurs français réunis, 1979,
p134.
[43]
[44]
HALBERSTADT-FREUD, Op. Cit., p63. We have translated
[into French, and then into English].
[45]
CS, vol. 1, pp 161-162. [RTP I, p125]
[46] We have already spoken of the scene under the point 2.2.1.1.2 The theory of inversion, but we wish to deepen the analysis.
[47] SGI,
vol. 3, pp 3-4. [RTP I, p3]
[48] BELLOÏ,
Op. Cit., p87. We have
explained social observation in the introduction to this chapter. We note that
Marcel stresses the great advantage of social observation, saying: “In M. de
Charlus another creature might indeed have coupled itself with him … this
creature might indeed have incorporated itself in the Baron, I never caught a
glimpse of it. Now the abstraction had become materialised, the creature at
last discerned had lost its power of remaining invisible, and the
transformation of M. de Charlus into a new person was so complete that not only
the contrasts of his face, of his voice, but, in retrospect, the very ups and
downs of his relations with myself, everything that hitherto had seemed to my
mind incoherent, became intelligible, brought itself into evidence.” (SGI, vol. 3, p16.) [RTP II, p12]
[49] We point out that Marcel nevertheless shows himself to the reader. During the crossing of the court also (vide infra), Marcel is ready to take the risk of being seen.
[50]
LAVAGETTO M, Op. Cit., p89
[51] Can we speak of an “inversion of meaning”?
[52] SGI,
vol. 3, p10. [RTP II, p8]
[53] SGI,
vol. 3, p11. [RTP II, p9]
[54] SGI,
vol. 3, p11. [RTP II, p9]
[55] KOLB
Ph, Op. Cit., t XI, p287.
[56] LERICHE
F, Op. Cit., pX.
[57] SGI,
vol. 3, p9. [RTP II, p8]
[58] SGI,
vol. 3, p9. [RTP II, p8]
[59] SGI,
vol. 3, p10. [RTP II, p8]
[60]
LAVAGETTO M, Op. Cit., p89
[61] These were the Dutch colonialists who seized South Africa after
having fought the British
(1899-1902).
[62] SGI,
vol. 3, p10. [RTP II, p8]
[63] SGI,
vol. 3, p29. [RTP II, p22]
[64] SGI,
vol. 3, p11. [RTP II, p9]
[65] Note the irony in the use of this word: the peephole [literally “bull’s eye”] is used also to designate the king’s antechamber where one had to wait at the time of a visit.
[66]
LAVAGETTO M, Op. Cit., p97
[67] TR,
vol. 4, p394. [RTP II,
p955]
[68] The theme of the staircase reminds one of Marcel’s childhood: “And
so I must …climb each step of the staircase ‘against my heart,’ as the saying
is, climbing in opposition to my heart’s desire, which was to return to my
mother, since she had not, by her kiss, given my heart leave to accompany me
forth. That hateful staircase, up which I always passed with such dismay, gave
out a smell of varnish…”(CS,
vol. 1, p27.) [RTP I, p21]
[69]
TR, vol. 4, p442. [RTP II, p990] We draw attention to the reference to Pompeii:
“I was thinking of Jupien’s hotel, perhaps now reduced to ashes (for a bomb had
fallen in the immediate neighbourhood just after I had left the place) – that
building on which M. de Charlus might well have placed the prophetic
inscription Sodoma, as did some unknown inhabitant of Pompeii with no
less foresight, or perhaps after the eruption had begun and when the
catastrophe was already under way.” (TR, vol. 4, p412.) [RTP II, p969]
[70] TR,
vol. 4, p394.
[71] BELLOÏ,
Op. Cit., p92
[72] Ibid.
[73] TR,
vol. 4, p394. [RTP II, p955]
[74] TR,
vol. 4, p396. [RTP II, p956]
[75] TR,
vol. 4, p405. [RTP II, p963]
[76] MILLER
M.L., Op. Cit., p105
[77] TR,
vol. 4, p406. [RTP II, p963]
[78] JFF, vol. 2, p109. Cf. 2.2.1.1.2 The theory of inversion, where we explained that homosexuals do not enjoy being among their own kind. [RTP I, p 566]
[79] Leriche points out in this connection that Proust suppressed an
episode in which Charlus incites a bus conductor to cruelty. The critic goes so
far as to assert “that it was not a matter of an accidental lapse of memory but
a deliberate self-censorship of the sole episode that presents Sodom as a
perversion.” (LERICHE F, Op.
Cit., p585)
[80]
KRISTEVA J, Op. Cit., p122
[81] TR,
vol.4, p404. [RTP II, p962]
[82] SGI,
vol.3, p11. [RTP II, p9]
[83]
KRISTEVA J, Op. Cit., p122
[84] TR,
vol. 4, p402. [RTP II, p960]
[85] ERMAN
M, L’œil de Proust, Op. Cit., p88.
[86] SGII,
vol. 3, p398.
[87]
KRISTEVA J, Op. Cit., p121
[88] TR,
vol. 4, pp 396-397.
[89] MILLER,
Op. Cit., p105.
[90] TR, vol. 4, p413. Schehr (Un amour de Charlus, conférence à Nimègue 14/03/01) writes this comparison in the sanctification of homosexuals: the catacombs being an element of Christianity, inverts become members of the primitive Church, from the slant of this comparison. In this way, they are sanctified (cf. The mythification of homosexuals which we have analyzed under the point 2.2.1.1.2 The theory of inversion) [RTP II, p969]
[91] Un
amour de Charlus, conférence de L.R. Schehr à Nimègue (14/03/01)
[92] TR,
vol.4, p412. [RTP II, p969]
[93]
TR, vol. 4, p386.
[94] It remains to be seen whether the Protagonist enters the corridors
of the Metro or not. The Search does not explicitly recount the entry.
However, that does not stop Marcel from describing minutely what happens in the
depths of
[95] BELLOÏ, Op. Cit., p90 We have adapted the diagram to suit our needs.
[96] BELLOÏ, Op.
Cit., p90.
[97] SCHUEREWEGEN
F, Op. Cit., p68.