54
PARTISAN REVIEW
entourage. In terms of "secondary" people in his small social circle
(with the important exception of Proust) the only possible candidate
was Charles du Bos, a touching character but often mocked. Whereas
those "primary" men Pierre Louys and Oscar Wilde had such great
luster! But there was a third friend to whom Gide looked for com–
plicity and passion, the model of an irrepressible thirst for life–
everything was completely alien to Valery - and the man in question
is Henri Gheon . Henri Gheon's "primary" nature was vital, full of
feeling, visceral, carnal. It was his naivete and openness, his jovial
exuberance, the way he seemed one of nature's own that Gide took
to in Gheon. "A faun wild with friendliness," he said of him. He was
a sort of uproarious Bluebeard: "Two eyes blazing in a beaming
face; a square beard, short, dark and thick; florid cheeks; a gleaming
scalp. He flashes me a look at once tender, cruel and friendly. He
showers me with extravagant compliments . While speaking, he ges–
ticulates, splutters, and lets out high-pitched whinnies at every in–
stant. You can feel him perpetually drunk with existence ." That is
how Roger Martin du Gard portrayed him. For Gide he was a living
example of how to accept himself and others with joy. "Gheon's
openness consoles me for all my hypocrisies. He has such admirable
strength and health ." In the spring of 1899, committing the typically
"secondary" sin of making a pilgrimage to North Africa, to the places
of his past happiness, Gide wrote to Gheon : "My mistake is to chase
after a lost emotion, to try to relive past time, to rekindle an old
flame." In 1902
The Immoralist
appeared with the following dedica–
tion,
To Henri Gheon,
nry
true friend.
For the third time, we come
across a major work whose dedication is in homage to a "primary"
life. A "true friend" is exactly what Gheon would be to Gide for
years. They travelled together, in Italy, in Africa. They discovered
that they had things in common, for instance, the gift of tears . "All
my most intense artistic emotions ," Gide wrote, "are invariably ac–
companied by tears , to the great amazement of those nearby if I am
at a museum or a concert. I remember some young English girls
overcome with laughter in the San Marco convent in Florence when
they saw me streaming with tears in front of Angelico's great fresco.
My friend Gheon, accompanying me at the time, was crying too and
I must admit that the spectacle of our two downpours would have
been very funny indeed!"
But it was especially the hunt for boys which brought them
together. They headed off on nocturnal expeditions around Les
HaIles , or along the boulevards, and they tried to solicit around
