PROUST AND THE DOUBLE
"I"
1015
between his work ,and the greater part of
his
correspondence. Letters
are usually a bridge from the writer's side to the man's, since the
hand which holds the pen is the same one that writes the master–
pieces. But the letters of Marcel Proust, even though they show
traces of the stylistic mannerisms, of the kinds of interests, and
something of the way of thinking of the author, occasionally revealing
his secret, display above all the caressing, hypersensitive, affected,
flattering, artificial, and enormously irritating mask of the man of
the world; but that mask is his face itself, and those who have been
close to him recognize in it the features of a friend.
The contrast is not only one of quality; it is almost one of nature.
For, on the day when Proust was struck by the "revelation" which
turned a snobbish, ailing, and well-ta-do idler into an artist,
his
essen–
tial nature was realized; and the transparent face which until then
had only been the appearance that matched his trifling reality, be–
came, without losing any of its characteristics (they were even in–
tensified somewhat), a protective mask, as tender, smiling, and affected
as ever, behind which he could conceal the new cruelty of his gaze.
Yet it was out of that useless and insignificant life, most narrow in
terms of human experience (and quite warped, besides ), that was to
emerge the work which throws upon our knowledge of man, upon
the truth of the passions, and upon society itself, the most penetrating
and vibrant ray of light ever witnessed in French literature.
Now, when we turn from this miserable life to that of Marcel,
the hero, the latter appears just as trifling and bare; and certainly
it is more confused, since even its time sequence eludes us. We can
never surmise the age of that boy who, in a single season, plays with
Gilberte in the Champs Elysees and tries to write an essay for the
Revue des Deux M ondes,
wins over Bergotte and never walks out
of the house without
his
nurse, weeps in bed when his mother does
not come to kiss him good night and offers his furniture to the
owner of a house of assignation which he patronizes. By what charm
was Bergotte won? And Gilberte, Swann, Odette, the Guermantes?
Never do we see any evidence of it, nor of that intelligence. which
dazzles Saint-Loup. At no time is the hero, Marcel, presented to us
as a living character; nor is he made palpable, or even described.
The only portrait which is missing
is his
own. What is wonderfully
