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375
them stay with us. For example, J ean's parents, who are a homelier
pair than Marcel's parents in the later book. Thrifty, kindly, rather
gauche, the Santeuils grow old in bourgeois fidelity and with a certain
consciousness of George Eliot. For that novelist is present here in more
than the Casaubon reference (a remarkable tribute to her is included
in the
Contre Sainte-Beuve
volume). The landscapes recall her land–
scapes, though they are overgrown with impressionist effects. Her no–
bility and generosity mingle strangely with the astringency of the Ana–
tole France of the
Histoire contemporaine.
The latter's example probably
leads to Jean's being involved in the Panama scandal and the Dreyfus
affair, although Proust's contention that listening to Colonel Picquart
is like reading the
Phaedo
is in Proust's own vein.
He appears at the time to have been intent on breaking with the
satirical tradition of the French novel, and
Contre Sainte-Beuve
attacks
the habit of raillery and skepticism of Sainte-Beuve's generation. Later,
in
La Recherche,
he of course frankly reverted to satire in his social
scenes and portraits; while the George Eliot note, combining with that
of Mme. de Sevigne, came to be reserved for Marcel's grandmother and
for Marcel himself on his idealistic side. In
Santeuil
the satire is, how–
ever, irrepressible, and it jostles the sentiment. There is a curious dis–
sonance, an impotent piety, a yearning to be good. The best passages
involve an excruciating comedy; Proust was to perfect this kind of
comedy in the mature novel but it is already his own here. A passionately
conservative and blood-proud duke discovers to his horror that he is
being confused by the newspapers with a vulgar, publicity-seeking rela–
tive. An ambitious hostess gives an elaborate party only to find that, in
the account of the affair which she has been at pains to get printed in
the
Figaro,
the spelling of her name has been hopelessly garbled. An
aging great painter attends an official exhibition of his work with the
old woman who has been his longtime mistress. "In front of a seascape
she said, 'That's the one you did from my drawing-room window at
Dieppe.' In front of a Salome: 'Don't you remember? It was my idea
you should place the little black slave just there. It was the day you
told me that I had good taste.' She pointed to a picture some way off
showing a pheasant lying on a table. 'That was the bird my husband
shot that terribly cold day.' She stopped with a proprietary air before
a pastel. 'You gave me that one for my birthday.' Farther off hung a
painting of an avenue, and Madame Devlen, plunging suddenly into
reminiscence, remarked, 'That was the year we went to Fontainebleau,'
adding, with an emotional quiver in her voice, 'what a long time ago
it seems.' "
F. W.
Dupee
